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People's Bank, in Bridgeport, is the largest independent bank in Connecticut. Its primary market is in Fairfield County, one of the nation's most affluent regions, where more than half of the households have a relationship with the bank. Statewide, in excess of 25 percent of households have relationships with People's. Founded in 1842 as a savings bank for middle class and blue collar workers, today People's is a multi-service financial institution with assets of more than $12 billion, more than 3,900 employees and a statewide network of 129 branches. The bank also offers 7-day-a-week service in 44 Super Stop & Shop stores.
The bank offers diversified consumer and commercial financial services, as well as discount brokerage, asset management, insurance and leasing services through its subsidiaries, People's Securities, Inc., Olson Mobeck & Associates, Inc., and R.C. Knox and Company, Inc. and People's Capital & Leasing Corp., respectively.
People's is the No. 1 mortgage lender and top issuer of Savings Bank Life Insurance in the state. An international issuer of bank credit cards, People's ranks as the 19th largest issuer of Visa and MasterCard.
People's converted to a mutual holding company/public ownership on July 13, 1988. Initial stock price was $5.67 (split-adjusted).
People's is recognized in the industry as a leader in service to its constituencies and as an innovator in banking concepts. In 1974, for example, People's was the first financial institution in the nation to offer bill-paying by telephone. Today, telephone banking is an integral part of People's customer service. More than 2 million calls are processed through the People's Plus Center every month.
Similarly, People's was the first bank in the region to open supermarket branches, offering convenient full-service banking directly to its customers, seven days a week.
Mergers, consolidations and regional banking have shifted the makeup of New England's financial industry. Today People's competes with large regional banking operations and succeeds in meeting the banking needs of Connecticut consumers and commercial banking customers. People's also succeeds in having a significant impact on the communities it serves as a leader in community lending projects and as a major employer.
David E.A. Carson, chief executive officer and chairman of People's Bank
John A. Klein, president of People's Bank
Edward H. Bucnis, executive vice president, Operations Division
Bryan J. Huebner, executive vice president, Consumer Financial Services Group
William T. Kosturko, executive vice president and general counsel
Michael J. Leone, executive vice president, Regional and Direct Banking
George W. Morriss, executive vice president and chief financial officer
Louis H. Ulizio, executive vice president, Commercial Banking Division
Mark K. Vitelli, executive vice president, Credit Card Services
Chief executive officer of People's Bank, David E. A. Carson
is viewed as a leader, a challenger, a person who effects needed
change. He is involved in many Connecticut civic, community and
cultural endeavors. And People's Bank, the multi-service financial
institution he heads, is recognized for its commitment not only
to the financial needs of its publics, but to the broader spectrum
of community life, public education and the arts.
Formerly the CEO of Middlesex Mutual Assurance, a property and casualty insurance company in Middletown, Conn., Carson joined People's in 1983. He is now CEO and trustee of People's Mutual Holdings and chairman and CEO of People's Bank, which has managed assets of more than $12 billion.
Carson is an immediate past chairman of America's Community Bankers and regularly adds his support on key bank industry legislative issues. He also is a director of the United Illuminating Company and American Skandia Trust. And he is a member of the Thrift Institutions Advisory Council, Federal Reserve System and of the Senior Advisory Council, The New England Banking Institute.
Public education is both a corporate and personal commitment. Carson is a trustee and former chairman of the board of Connecticut Public Broadcasting and past chairman of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association. He is also chairman of the Business Advisory Committee, Connecticut Commission on Children. He is the former chairman, Board of Trustees, Hartford Seminary. In the bank's headquarters city, Carson is chairman of the Bridgeport Public Education Fund, a founder of the Bridgeport Futures Initiative and trustee of a new state-of-the-art public magnet school in Bridgeport. The magnet school is part of a statewide demonstration to show how business can assist and support educational change.
People's Bank is a significant financial contributor to educational programs in Bridgeport and the state. The bank provides major support for educational programs on Connecticut Public Television. People's also funds an art and education series for children each year at the Bushnell (theater) and has been instrumental in bringing the Hartford Ballet to Bridgeport. People's Bank has, for the past ten years, sponsored and funded a calendar that features the artwork of disabled adults who work at the Kennedy Center in Bridgeport. The bank distributes the calendars at all its branches and hosts an annual reception where the original art is sold.
"A bank that makes a real commitment to a community can't do that with just bricks and mortar, but with what affects the lives of its people," says Carson. A strong supporter of "in kind" donations, he
has performed roles in several Connecticut Ballet Theater productions in Stamford and New York. He has furled sails from the highest yardarm of Bridgeport's famous HMS Rose and hugged boa constrictors at the Beardsley Zoo. He regularly reads to schoolchildren and is equally at home giving ecumenical sermons at local churches.
As a former insurance executive and actuary, Carson places tremendous focus on numbers and analysis, but he is also known as the catalyst for the vision that has taken People's Bank into a highly competitive position in Connecticut and beyond.
Founded in 1842 as a mutual savings bank and converted to stock form in 1988, People's is now the largest independent bank in Connecticut. People's offers a wide range of banking, fiduciary and financial services to corporate, individual and municipal customers. And in the highly competitive banking market of the 1990s, People's is widely recognized for its innovative concepts, including supermarket banking, PC banking and various online and video banking services. People's also is a top 20 issuer nationally of Visa and MasterCard.
Born in Birkenhead, England, Carson grew up in New York. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, School of Business Administration and received a Doctor of Laws Degree (honoris causa) from the University of New Haven and honorary degrees from the University of Bridgeport and Sacred Heart University.
In 1996, Carson was asked to give the commencement address at two city universities. His messages at both these schools reflect his thought process. At the University of Bridgeport, Carson spoke of pride in graduating from a university in a city like Bridgeport with a rich heritage and a strong future. At Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Carson's speech, "Days of Joy," focused on treasuring the experiences that really matter in life. And for this banking CEO, these experiences clearly extend beyond the executive office into the heart and soul of his community.
John A. Klein was named president of People’s Bank in May 1999. He will become chief executive officer Oct. 1, 1999 and chairman Jan. 1, 2000. Most recently he was executive vice president, Credit Card Services. In that position, he had overall responsibility for the bank’s credit card business in the U.S. as well as the United Kingdom.
Klein joined People’s in 1971 as a management trainee. His promotion in 1999 to president reflects a career at People’s Bank which spans more than a quarter century. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1971 and his law degree in 1977, both from the University of Connecticut.
He established the bank’s Legal department, and in 1984, was named general counsel. During his tenure in the Legal department, Klein played an instrumental role in various People’s mergers and acquisitions and was integral in the passage of the state laws providing for the creation of mutual holding companies and the elimination of interest rate caps on credit cards.
Following the bank’s regional reorganization in 1985, Klein was promoted to senior vice president, manager, of the Hartford Region. Shortly thereafter, he was named the first chairman of the Corporate Quality Improvement Team. He also led the project team which developed and implemented the Team Management System, which is used bankwide to manage the performance of the bank’s 129 branch offices and supermarket locations.
Klein was named senior vice president, Consumer Banking, in 1990. In 1994, he was named executive vice president, Consumer Banking. The Consumer Banking Division was comprised of the bank’s Credit Card, Consumer Credit, Consumer Deposit, Residential Lending and Savings Bank Life Insurance departments, and its discount brokerage subsidiary, People’s Securities, Inc. Credit Card Services was made a separate division of the bank in 1996, reflecting its significance to the bank and the need for a separate focus as a national and international business.
Klein, who lives with his wife and their two children, is a member of the MasterCard business committee and the banking law section of the Connecticut Bar Association. He has served on the United Way Allocations Council. Klein also is a director of the Savings Bank Life Insurance Company and a trustee of Sacred Heart University.
Edward H. Bucnis is executive vice president of the Operations
Division at People's Bank, responsible for the Data Center, Business
Information Systems, Telecommunications, Security, Quality, check
processing, micrographics, purchasing, accounts reconciliation,
mortgage servicing, internal consulting, automated teller machines,
and Real Estate Services, which includes both real estate owned
and real estate investments.
His extensive technical and managerial skills are reflected in the development of many People's Bank services and automated systems.
Bucnis first joined the bank in 1974 where he was involved in developing the bank's highly successful Check Plus and Pay-By-Phone products. As convenience banking became popular, he was instrumental in installing the bank's first automated teller machine.
Bucnis was named vice president of the Operations Division in 1976 and executive vice president in 1987. He was a key force in determining the technologies needed to place People's on the leading edge of financial services technology. These systems are now in place at the Operations Center located in the bank's headquarters in Bridgeport.
Bucnis, a native of the Chicago area, began his career at LaSalle National Bank. In 1969, he accepted a position at Bunker Ramo, a brokerage and banking computer equipment manufacturer in Stamford, where he stayed for five years. He then worked at Mathews & Co., a computer consulting firm, where his main client was People's Bank. It was there that Bucnis was recruited by People's management.
He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and did some graduate work at Northwestern University. He also has a diploma from the National School of Savings Banking. He presently serves on the boards of the American Diabetes Association - Connecticut Affiliate, the Connecticut Center for Educational and Training Technologies, Inc., People's Securities, Inc. and the Connecticut Economic Conference Board - Communications, Information and Education Group. He also serves on the Amercia's Community Banker's Task Force on Electronic Banking.
Bryan J. Huebner is executive vice president of the Consumer Financial Services Division at People’s Bank. The group includes Consumer Deposit Services, Insurance Services, including R.C. Knox and company, Inc., Residential Lending, Consumer Lending, Investment Services, including People’s Securities, Inc., and Customer Information.
Previously, Huebner was senior vice president, manager, of Human Resources and Strategic Planning at People's Bank. He also is past chairman of the bank's Corporate Quality Improvement Team (QIT).
Huebner is a long-time employee who has spent his entire career at People’s. Prior to being named region manager in 1990, he was senior vice president, manager, of Consumer Banking Products within the Banking Group. Earlier, he was first vice president of Depositor Services in the Banking Group, and prior to that, he was vice president of Investor Services. He also spent time early in his career in Product Planning.
Huebner holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Lehigh University and a master's degree in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has completed courses in strategic planning and product development at Wharton's Executive Education Program and also has completed the Human Resource Executive Program at the University of Michigan.
Huebner is past chairman and current member of the boards of the Southeastern Fairfield County Chapter of the American Red Cross and Junior Achievement of Western Connecticut. Huebner is past co-chairman of the 1998 Junior Achievement Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame dinner and past co-chairman of the 1998 Shehan Center Annual Golf Tournament. Currently he serves on the Executive Committee and Programs & Volunteers Committee for Junior Achievement. Huebner also is a director for the New England College of Finance (formerly the New England Banking Institute), serves on the Executive Committee of Connecticut Policy & Economic Council and is a member of the United Way Allocation Panel.
William T. Kosturko is general counsel and executive vice president of People's Bank. He is responsible for the direction of the bank's legal operations and legislative affairs.
Kosturko joined People's in 1991. He previously was executive vice president and counsel at Society for Savings in Hartford. Prior to joining Society in l979, Kosturko was an associate at the law firm of Day, Berry & Howard in Hartford.
He is chairman of the board of directors of the Regional Youth and Adult Substance Abuse Prevention program in the greater Bridgeport area. He also is a member of the board of regents of Sacred Heart University and a member of the board of directors of Connecticut Legal Services, a non-profit organization providing legal assistance to the poor throughout the state.
Kosturko recently served on a select committee responsible for the Recodification of Connecticut Banking Law passed by the General Assembly. He also has served as president of the board of directors of the Legal Aid Society of Hartford County, chairman of the Banking Law Section of the Connecticut Bar Association, a director of the Hartford Stage Company, and chairman of the Connecticut State Elections Commission.
He is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Michael J. Leone is executive vice president, Regional and Direct Banking for People’s Bank. He is responsible for overseeing the activities of the bank’s five regions, marketing area and its direct banking business, including Internet Banking, Trading and the Call Center.
Prior to joining the bank's executive officer group, Leone was senior vice president, manager, Bridgeport Region, responsible for operations of the bank’s 25 offices in the greater Bridgeport area. He also led the bank's initiative to establish 44 branch offices inside Super Stop & Shop supermarkets throughout Connecticut.
Leone joined People’s in 1972 as manager of systems and programming in the Data Processing department. In 1976, he became vice president, Depositor Services. Prior to joining People’s, Leone served as a captain, U.S. Air Force, and engineering officer at the Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, California.
Leone has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also received a master’s degree in business administration from Golden Gate University.
Leone is very active in the community, serving on the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, the Stratford Business Education Support Team and the Stratford Economic Development Task Force. He is chairman of Stratford Catholic Schools Board of Education, a member of the advisory board of directors of St. Joseph High School, past president and current board member of the Bridgeport Neighborhood Fund, trustee of the Central Connecticut Coast YMCA and current member and past president of the Bridgeport Rotary Club. Leone also serves as a coach in the Stratford Little League and is a member of St. Mark Church.
Previously, Leone was chairman of the board of directors of the Central Connecticut Coast YMCA and the 1994 campaign chair for the United Way of Eastern Fairfield County.
In 1991, Leone received People’s Bank’s highest honor for community service, the Samuel W. Hawley Public Service Award and in 1995 he was honored with the bank’s highest award for leadership of the Quality Improvement Process, the Thomas P. Legen Award. In 1994, Leone received the Norman K. Parsells Award from the Rotary Clubs of Bridgeport, Stratford, Trumbull and Fairfield for his "service above self."
Leone and his wife, Mary Alice, have seven children.
George W. Morriss is People's Bank executive vice president and chief financial officer, responsible for directing the bank's Corporate Finance, Treasury, Investments, Strategic Planning, Audit, Asset Liability Management, Loan Review, Commercial Appraisal, and Investor Relations departments.
Morriss joined People's Bank in 1982 as vice president. He was later promoted to first vice president and chief equity strategist and was in charge of the bank's fixed income portfolio. He was promoted to senior vice president, New Haven Region manager, in charge of the bank’s retail distribution network, commercial lending and real estate. Before joining People's Bank, he was vice president and senior trust investment officer at Connecticut National Bank, and, earlier, he was vice president at Girard Bank in Philadelphia.
Morriss graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a political science degree and has an MBA in finance with honors from Temple University. He is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
He is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the Financial Analysts Federation, NASDAQ’s Issuers Affairs Committee, The Conference Board’s Council of CFO’s and an advisory member of Fairfield University School of Business. He has served as vice chairman of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce; chairman of the Guilford Economic Development Commission; director, United Way of Greater New Haven; chairman, Heritage Fund of the United Way of Greater New Haven; director, Shubert Theater of the Performing Arts; director, Dixwell Community House; co-chair, Martin Luther King Celebration Benefit; director, New Haven Symphony; trustee, New Haven Symphony Foundation; director, Seton Real Estate; vice president and treasurer, SARAH Foundation.
He and his wife have three children.
Louis H. Ulizio Jr., is executive vice president and head of the Commercial Banking Division at People's Bank. He directs all commercial loan and commercial mortgage lending at the bank, including credit administration, asset-based lending, cash management, international commercial services and trust services.
Also a part of the Commercial Banking Division are People's subsidiaries Olson Mobeck & Associates, an asset management firm in Rocky Hill, and People's Capital and Leasing Corp., a finance firm in Waterbury.
Throughout his career, Ulizio has concentrated his expertise on commercial banking in Connecticut. He joined People's Bank in 1991. Previously he was vice chairman and chief lending officer, as well as a director, at BankBoston, Connecticut, for 24 years, (serving in the same position he has at People's).
Ulizio holds bachelor's degrees in accounting and economics from the University of Connecticut (UConn) and a master's in business administration, also from UConn.
He and his wife, Marilyn, have four children.
Ulizio is a former director of St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury. He currently is a member of the advisory board of the Family Small Business Program of UConn's School of Business Administration, as well as an active fundraiser for UConn 2000, along with his wife Marilyn, and a participant on numerous other committees at the school. He was inducted into the UConn Business Hall of Fame in 1996.
Ulizio also has served on various committees at the governor's office, including the board of directors of the Connecticut Economic Development Fund Foundation and the Connecticut Development Authority, and on numerous committees at Lady of Fatima Church and Barnum Museum.
Mark K. Vitelli is executive vice president, Credit Card Services at People’s Bank. In this position, he has overall responsibility for the bank’s national and international credit card businesses.
Vitelli joined the bank in 1984 as a management trainee and has served in various management positions throughout the bank. In 1986, Mark moved to the Commercial Division where he was the commercial liability product manager responsible for commercial checking accounts and other liability products.
In 1987, Vitelli became administration/operations officer in People’s Hartford Region. His responsibilities included human resources, branch operations, new branch development and budgeting. In 1990, he was promoted to vice president, area manager in the Hartford Region as part of the reorganization of regional banking. In 1991, Vitelli became vice president, Consumer Credit.
In 1993, Vitelli was made first vice president, Consumer Credit, responsible for credit card administration and strategic planning, including finance, operations, asset protection and the consumer lending business.
Widely regarded within the credit card industry, Vitelli has spoken domestically and internationally on collections as well as automation, telephone services and securitization. He is a member of the Visa Risk and Operations Committee.
A Milford resident, Vitelli holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and history from Yale University and a master’s in business administration from Sacred Heart University.
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