Bevack Reflects on 5 Turbulent Years at UCFC
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- When Patrick W. Bevack took charge of United Community Financial Corp. Jan. 1, 2011, its future was bleak and there was no assurance it would survive or, if it did, remain independent. Bevack retired Monday.
When he became UCFC's CEO, it was under the control of federal and state regulators who watched its every move. Neither UCFC nor its subsidiary, the Home Savings and Loan Co., could make a major decision without first clearing it with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. or the Ohio Division of Financial Institutions.
Bevack joined Home Savings in June 2000 as senior vice president of mortgage banking, shortly after Home Savings went public and formed UCFC. Its future seemed bright and the housing market was headed in only one direction, up.
On June 5, 2003, Bevack was promoted to executive vice president and chief financial officer of both Home Savings and UCFC and he held those posts until Jan. 19, 2007, when he was named president and chief operating officer.
Matters were not as rosy inside as they seemed outside and the collapse of the housing market and Home Savings’ lack of familiarity with markets outside the Mahoning Valley caused federal regulators to issue cease and desist orders Aug. 12, 2008.
It took five years but UCFC regained its financial health and returned to profitability. “Pat put his feet to the shovel that dug us out of the hole,” says Richard G. Schiraldi, non-executive chairman of the boards of both UCFC and Home Savings.
As the board of directors of UCFC became aware the scope of the company’s plight and that the road to recovery would be steep and filled with chuckholes, they made the difficult decisions, including asking Bevack’s predecessor to retire and tapping Bevack to step in. “I was willing to do it,” he says of that time, “and I did it.”
Says Schiraldi, who became non-executive chairman upon Bevack’s accession, “On the day we put Pat in charge, he took charge. He did everything we asked him to do. A lot of that was dictated by the regulators, of course, and he did it. He accomplished all our goals.”
Among the keys to recovery were treating employees fairly, Bevack says, both those who stayed and those laid off, and the exceptionally strong loyalty Home Savings customers displayed throughout.
“Youngstown is made up of loyal, good people,” Bevack states. ”They care more about their community and their own than any other place I’ve been.” They have an inner toughness that allowed the Mahoning Valley, including Home Savings, to overcome bad times and rebound, he says.
Bevack’s career at other banks in Greater Cleveland helped to prepare him for what lay ahead. “I’d bought and sold branches and mortgage servicing rights,” he said, and helped conduct an IPO, or initial public offering.
Besides selling the former Butler Wick & Co. brokerage business to Stifel Nicholaus & Co. Inc. and its trust company to Farmers National Banc Corp., in early 2009, UCFC divested its four branches in northwestern Ohio in late summer 2011. It also sought to raise capital so it could assure regulators of meeting and sustaining regulatory minimums.
Home Savings also had to recruit managers to help him get the bank back on its feet. Here Bevack gives extensive credit to Matthew T. Garrity, whom he recruited as chief credit officer. Garrity is also executive vice president of Home Savings.
“Pat found Matt Garrity who changed the credit culture at the bank,” Schiraldi says.
Attracting the caliber of individuals needed required considerable persuasion, Schiraldi notes. “It was not a job that [capable] people wanted or an institution that you wanted to work at. Pat had to sell Matt. It was a huge sale on Pat’s part.”
Recruiting, dismissing, courting potential investors, complying with regulators’ demands, working out bad loans and removing them from the books, overseeing the financial statements: Bevack participated in or oversaw all those efforts.
He was used to hard work and long hours, having held jobs since he was 12 when he delivered papers and caddied at a country club.
In high school, he stocked shelves and bagged groceries at a supermarket, noting that he was a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and attended Cleveland State University in a co-op program where he alternated quarters taking classes and working for Republic Steel Corp.
At Cleveland State he earned a baccalaureate in accounting and later a master’s degree in finance.
Bevack worked five years overseeing data systems for a battery manufacturer before entering finance and becoming a certified financial systems analyst.
In Cleveland, he worked for Metropolitan Bank & Trust, TransOhio Savings Bank and Cardinal Federal Savings Bank. “I worked for a small bank and large banks,” he says, which gave him a deeper appreciation for what Home Savings faced after it stumbled and had to work its way out of trouble.
The most emotionally difficult aspect of leading the recovery at Home Savings was letting people go. “Most of the time, these were people who had worked long and hard for the company,” he says. “We tried to find other spots for them where they could succeed when we could.”
Home Savings continues to employee some 500 today. “There are more people with long-term tenure than at any company I’ve worked with,” Bevack points out. “That’s because the company has always cared about our employees and our employees have always cared about the company. You treat people fairly and they’ll treat you fairly.”
Looking back on his tenure as CEO, Bevack says, “I believe we accomplished everything we wanted to do” and that his successor, Gary Small, is set on the path to “our goal of making [UCFC] the premier savings institution in Ohio.”
This story was published in the April edition of The Business Journal, in subscribers mailboxes today.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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