How one family has kept an NYC thrift on an even keel

Ken Rudzewick began working at Maspeth Federal Savings in 1956 after a phone call from his father connected him with the depositor-owned bank’s president. He started as a teller and later moved into accounting, marketing, and real estate lending. The thrift has maintained mutual status while many other depositor-owned banks converted to stock ownership. Ken and Tom Rudzewick led the institution through decades of uninterrupted profitability. The leadership modernized the traditional savings-and-loan approach to compete with larger neighborhood institutions while preserving the depositor-owned structure.

"Ken had just graduated high school. Henry Rudzewick, a New York City firefighter, was determined to see him get a job. "You're not going to be hanging around the house all the time," Ken, who is 88, recalled his father saying. Henry called his friend, Franklin Frontera, president of the depositor-owned Maspeth Federal Savings. Ken started as a teller the next day. "I had my shirt and tie on, and I walked to the bank," he told American Banker. "I lived four blocks away.""

"Rudzewick has spent his entire working life at the $2.2 billion-asset thrift, which is headquartered in the Maspeth section of Queens, and played an important role in maintaining its mutual status even as scores of other depositor-owned banks, nearly 200 since 1999, moved to convert to stock ownership. Rudzewick began climbing the management ladder a few years after joining Maspeth. He recalls being moved off the teller line one day when his drawer ended the day $100 short. Frontera asked him if he'd like to try a different job."

""I didn't get the door, which I thought I should have gotten," Rudzewick said. "He kicked me upstairs." Rudzewick worked in the accounting department, marketing and real estate lending. "Everybody was f""

""We've brought the old, traditional savings-and-loan model up to modern times so that we can compete with the big boys that are in our neighborhood." - CEO Tom Rudzewick"

Read at American Banker