Walter Dods transformed bank and Honolulu

By Deborah Adamson
Advertiser Staff Writer

The aesthetically elegant First Hawaiian Center, the tallest building in Hawai'i, is in one respect a metaphor for Walter Dods.

Walter Dods is retiring as chairman and CEO of BancWest Corp., parent of First Hawaiian Bank. He'll remain busy for some time to come. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

At the close of the year, 63-year-old Dods will retire as chairman and chief executive of BancWest Corp., the parent of First Hawaiian Bank. His business legacy is this: He transformed a sleepy community bank perpetually in the shadow of Bank of Hawaii into a multi-state powerhouse on track to rack up $50 billion in assets by year-end as one of the 25 largest banks in the nation.

He's not done doing deals. Dods is leading local investors to join The Carlyle Group in Washington, D.C., in buying Verizon Hawaii for $1.65 billion. The utility will be renamed Hawaiian Telcom.

Not bad for an 'Aina Haina boy who still keeps a stash of li hing cherry seed in a credenza at his corner office atop First Hawaiian Center.

"It's a real Hawai'i success story," said Robbie Alm, a former First Hawaiian Bank executive and state official who now works at Hawaiian Electric. "It shows that you don't have to stop being local to be successful."

Sitting in his minimalist office on the 29th floor, which has sweeping views of Honolulu, Dods downplays his own success.

"I always say that behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law," he said with a laugh.

"In the morning, I could hear him swearing, 'Where the hell did I put my bullets?' He couldn't find anything," Dods recalled. Sometimes "he went to work with only the handle part of the gun in the holster. He couldn't find the revolver; he couldn't find the bullets."

A graduate of Saint Louis High School, the young Dods worked nights and weekends to help pay for school. He pumped gas, bagged groceries at Foodland and washed dishes late at night at 'Aina Haina Chop Suey. Since age 15, he has been working at least 40 hours a week.

His first office job bore the uninspiring title of "dead files clerk" at First Insurance Co.

"I was responsible for climbing up into the attic every morning and filing all the expired insurance policies. Can you think of a more boring job?" he said. "It's funny because I used to file fast. I always did everything fast and then since I was up in the attic...I would go up (on) the file cabinet and sleep."

Dods joined First Hawaiian Bank 36 years ago as director of advertising and public relations. Back then, the bank was known as First National Bank of Hawaii. Immediately, he was called to preside over the name change to First Hawaiian Bank. It meant working long hours and holidays.

Such long hours were guaranteed to stay due to a succession of promotions — at 29, he became vice president, at 32, a senior vice president, and 34, an executive vice president. In 1984, Dods became one of the bank's youngest presidents at 43.

Accomplishments came from the outside too: He was the only Hawai'i banker to be named president of the American Bank-

ers Association. He has even sat in councils and given Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan his opinions.

"Later he would say, 'Can you imagine? A St. Louis boy talking to the Federal Reserve chairman," Alm recalled.

But looking back at the late nights and out-of-town trips, Dods said that people on the outside might think that he had it all. Not true.

"You're away so much, you work such long hours," he said. "My wife and children paid the price. Big time."

He said his wife, Diane, was left alone on many occasions to raise the children herself as he poured his energies into the bank. Case in point: Dods can name the exact day he joined First Hawaiian — Dec. 23, 1968 — but cannot remember whether he was married in 1971 or 1972.

"Diane made it work for a lot of years and she doesn't complain, or say, look at me," Alm, a former Dods colleague, said. "She's actually very strong and very even. She's someone who will pick up her burden and do it."

Professionally, his relationships usually went well. He was close to his predecessor at First Hawaiian, deceased CEO John Bellinger, even though colleagues said both men had different personalities.

"Mr. Bellinger was, you might say, old school. He was very forceful and very clear in his directives in what he expected from people," said Jack Hoag, a director of BancWest Corp. and former president of First Hawaiian Bank. "Walter is more of a collaborative leader, building consensus."

When Bellinger died of a sudden heart attack in 1989, Dods, who was in Europe at the time he found out, was called to step in.

"Walter's style — for the era he came in — was most fortuitous because it was an age where the bank had to grow or go backwards ... Small community banks would have difficulty to grow if they stayed in one market," Hoag said. "Walter, shortly after he took over, got us into the merger business."

Within six months, First Hawaiian Bank announced its acquisition of First Interstate Bank of Hawaii. Later, Pioneer Federal Savings and First Hawaiian Creditcorp would be merged into the bank.

Dods worked to modernize the bank and improve efficiency.

Not only did he hire a nationally known computer consultant, among whose clients was General Electric, but he made a decision to switch from NCR computers to IBM mainframes, which major national banks were using, Hoag said.

"This was something Mr. Bellinger absolutely refused to do. He had a bad experience with IBM and he could never see IBM in this bank," Hoag said.

Dods also consolidated back-office functions; each branch used to do its own paperwork. He created a call center to ease the burden from local branches, who had to field hundreds of calls every month.

The coup de grace of his career, however, was the merger with Bank of the West in California to form BancWest Corp. in 1998. Three years later, Paris-based BNP Paribas, already an investor in BancWest, would buy the company outright at a 40 percent premium. Shareholders walked away with a windfall. Dods was one of them; his pre-tax take came to $30 million.

BancWest Corp. is on track to end the year with $50 billion in total assets, Hoag said. For the first time in its history, First Hawaiian Bank assets topped $10 billion this year. Net income has steadily grown to $136.1 million in 2003 from $125 million in 2001.

Dods had "chutzpah," Hoag said.

Artistically, Dods' pinnacle was the $175 million First Hawaiian Center, his pet project. Designed by New York architect Bill Pedersen, the 430-foot building is the state's tallest. Dods was both praised and criticized for the building since it replaced a historical 1920s-era Damon building. "It was a labor of love — and they're never easy," Dods said.

His next big task in retirement is handling the Verizon Hawaii acquisition. Depending on how well Hawaiian Telcom does, the investors may sell it, take it public or keep it as is, Dods said. But the deal will bring more jobs to Hawai'i, positions that Verizon had moved to the Mainland.

Dods also will continue to serve as a director on many company boards and stay involved with community groups. There's even talk about him teaching at a local business school. His advice to the youth? Don't be afraid to follow your dreams and if possible, get experience outside of Hawai'i.

"The best employees I have in my bank, the very best, are those that have gone away for a while and had a growing experience, learned what the big world's like and because of Hawai'i's special uniqueness and values, have come home," he said.

But for local kids to be competitive, they have to work on their verbal skills.

"We have the best people in the world, the hardest working people in the world. But we are still weak in our verbal skills," he said. "It hurts our kids in job interviews, in making impressions. Once you're in, Hawai'i kids do as well or better than anybody else. But getting in is a problem."

As for his own future ambitions, would he reconsider a run for public office?

Dods won't say. He came close to running for governor in 2002 — but his family made him nix the idea.

"I had a (family) meeting the night before I was going to announce. I knew there was some resistance in the family. My youngest son said to me, 'Dad, let me put it to you this way — you're high strung, you're uptight, you're stressed out all the time. And the bank, when you ask people to do things, they do it. When you get to government, it doesn't work that way and I don't want you to die.' And then one by one, all the kids jumped on," he said.

Dods would be a natural in public office, but he should aim for Washington, D.C., not the governorship, Alm said.

Since Hawai'i's a small state, it can't wield political clout. Instead, the state needs politicians who are "personalities" — charismatic public servants who "work well with people and people end up wanting to do things for them," he said.

That's Dods.

"He's like an irresistible force and that's why I think a lot of people think he should run for office. The more time you spend around him, the more you want to do what he says," Alm said. "There's that Hawaiian term, mana, which is like that inside force you have. Walter has mana."

Reach Deborah Adamson at dadamson@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8088.