August 8, 2012: Day 7 of 30

Last night I got home at about 7:45 after a late meeting at work and immediately changed into my pjs to relax.  I sat down on the couch to enter my dinner into My Fitness Pal to finish tracking the days calories when I realized that I had not yet done my 15 minutes of evening exercise.  I considered skipping it, it was almost 8:00 already and I am usually in bed by 9:15, but I couldn't do it.  The discipline of the plan has been too important to me this last week to start letting it slide just because I had a late meeting at work.  So off I went to the bedroom to change out of my pajamas and into my gym clothes.  I got my 15 minutes in!  It felt good to stick to the plan.

The job change I am getting ready to make is a big one.  I am currently working for a pretty good sized regional bank (about $4 billion in assets).  I ended up in banking kind of accidentally about 2.5 years ago.  I moved back to Kansas City in early 2009 to marry Jack.  When I left the Bay Area I was the Senior Director of Operations and Finance for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in San Francisco.  The transition from that job went very smoothly.  After moving to KC in February, I continued to work for YBCA until October.  I continued to serve as the Finance Director, working remotely and traveling to SF for board meetings and other important events.  That gave the organization plenty of time to find my replacement, I helped them get through their June 2010 audit, and I helped train my replacement.  It was a pretty sweet deal for everyone involved.  After that gig wrapped up I took a couple of months off to get through the holidays and finish painting our new house, but as the new year came around it was time for me to start looking for work.  Perhaps you don't recall what the job market looked like in January 2010, but it was pretty bleak.  As I started looking for work I began calling my old Kansas City contacts to ask them to be references for me and one of them was the president of a local community bank.  He began talking to me about working for him in his credit department.  At first I wasn't very interested, I mean, a bank?  But after a long and grueling application and interview process for the CFO position at the KC United Way where I ended up being 2nd choice (Don't you hate being 2nd choice?  It's like being in the Olympics and ending up with the silver medal, but feeling like you lost.) and coming up with very few decent paying solid leads I started thinking more about it. 

Going to work for the bank might be exactly the right thing for me to do.  It was a community bank working under a consent order from the OCC, meaning the regulators were breathing down their necks threatening to shut them down because they had too little free-and-clear equity on their balance sheet compared to their asset size.  I believe in community banks and think we need more, not fewer, of them.  If I had a chance to help a community bank survive this crisis, perhaps that was something I should consider doing.

In addition to it feeling like the right thing to do for the community, I realized it could be the right thing to do for me, too.  After being in the Bay Area for five years, my KC contacts were weak.  The last job on my resume said San Francisco and that made getting that first interview tough.  Also, although it was one of the best decisions I've made in my adult life, explaining that I moved back here to get married in an interview was always a little awkward when I was applying for executive positions.  I figured that a year or two (or however long it lasted) at the bank could really help out.  Not only would I have a local company back at the top of my resume, my time at at the bank would expose me to a lot of different companies and people in the community, greatly increasing my odds of finding the right job for me down the road.  So I accepted the position for a few reasons.  First, to try to make a difference in my community; second, to strengthen my resume and make local connections; and third, to start getting paid again. 

I was at the community bank for 15 months before they failed and the FDIC took them over.  Oh my God, what a traumatic experience that was.  I know I only worked for this bank for a little over a year, but this was my community bank.  My children opened their first savings accounts there 20 years ago.  This bank was the second oldest business in Johnson County, KS when it failed.  And, technically, they didn't really fail.  That's the rub.  The bank had plenty of cash.  In fact, in the two years since they had been placed under a consent order the bank's deposits had grown, an unheard of feat in the banking industry.  We had crazy loyal customers and crazy loyal employees.  This community believed in this bank until the very end.  I believe, as most of us do, that the bank would have recovered on its own, but they were not given that opportunity.  Back during the big Savings and Loan scandal in the 1980s congress passed legislation that if a bank's equity fell below 2% of assets, it was considered to have failed and the Feds will take it over.  That's what happened.  When the bank reported it's earnings on April 30, 2011, its equity had fallen below 2%.

What happened next was kind of a nightmare.  On Friday, August 12, 2012 the staff was informed that they must attend a mandatory meeting that afternoon at 5:00.  We all knew why.  We knew that the FDIC was shutting us down and had already sold us to the higher bidder.  We just didn't know who that highest bidder was.  We were all thinking Arvest Bank (which is owned by the Sam Walton group of Walmart fame).  So at 5:00 we report to the lobby and then the men and women in black start pouring in through every entrance of the bank.  Oh, and don't forget the men in blue, there were plenty of police officers there, too.  Once everyone was in the bank and the doors were locked the head of the FDIC team informed us that our bank had failed and that we had been taken into receivership by the Federal Government.  In his next breath he informed us of who had won the bid and purchased the bank from the Federal Government.  It was a surprise to all of us.  It was the mid-sized regional bank I referred to earlier (I'm keeping the names of the banks out of my blog - though it will be easy enough for any of you that really care to figure it out).

The bank's area president introduced herself, told us a little about the bank and why they wanted to own us, talking about the great fit, opportunity, our great staff, our loyal customers, blah, blah, blah.  We are all numb to everything at this point.  Then we're told that we have to stay at work that night until we get permission both from the Feds and from the new bank to leave.  The next day, Saturday, we had to report to a meeting in the annex to get on-boarded as temporary employees and many of us had to interview for new jobs.  It was just a little stressful. 

In that interview the new bank learned about my previous experience as a CFO, controller, and GM for various small companies and it was shortly after that they decided I would be a good person to head up their new Business Banking Initiative.  I'll tell you more about that initiative tomorrow, but after a couple of weeks of learning more about the initiative, they offered me a position at the bank.  After a little negotiating, I accepted.  That was about a year ago.

Chapter 2 of the story will have to come tomorrow.  I need to head to work now...

The following is a recap of day 7 of my 30 day plan:

8/8/2012: Day 7 of 30
Morning weight: 181.6
Today's calorie count: 1490
Morning exercise: Strength Training - see August 3, Day 2 of 30.  Strength training workout changes each Friday when I work with my trainer. 
Evening exercise: 15 minute stair machine at level 7 - 64 floors (Heart rate in mid 130s)
Alcohol consumption: None
Younger Next Year pages read: 30
Notes from book:  (Quotes and very near quotes in italics)

I don't have much time to talk about what I read yesterday, but a quick summary of what I retained is that it was about the importance of using a heart rate monitor and exercising within specific heart rate ranges for a specific number of days a week.  Harry recommends two days of exercise at a light aerobic level (60 - 65% of max heart rate) and four days at a heavy aerobic level (65% - 80% of max heart rate).  He also talks about the benefit of going all out and reaching 90% of max on occasion.  Two of those four days of heavy exercise will eventually be strength training.  Harry does recommend taking this slow.  At first, all six days may be in that light aerobic range and it may take a year or two before you add the strength training, but the ultimate, long term goal is 2 days of light aerobic cardio (preferably at least one day being one of the healing exercises), 2 days hard aerobic exercise, and 2 days of strength training.

Reading this chapter reminded me of the importance of the light cardio days.  They do a completely different number on your body than the heavy days do.  The heavy days make you stronger and more fit, but those light days make you healthier.  It's important to do both.  Last week I substituted a run day for a cycling day.  That gets me one of my light aerobic days into my week.  I have also decided that on my day off from morning exercise I am going to turn my 15 minutes of evening cardio into an hour long walk.  That way I will get my two light aerobic days in every week.

That's all for now.  I am sure there are tons of misplaced commas, etc... in the above.  I will edit later...for now this will have to do.  I'm late for work!!