Crocker's New Asset

Emmett G. Solomon, the courtly 64-year-old chairman of San Francisco's Crocker Bank, presented his board with a hand-picked successor last August. Not surprisingly, the candidate was Lester Peacock, 43, the bank's president and a fellow traditionalist, who seemed particularly interested in bankerly decorum. Peacock once remarked to his associates: "No gentleman ever wears brown shoes." The bank's board turned Peacock down flat because Crocker's pin-stripe conservatism had simply not been paying off. While more innovative, bolder California banks were gaining ground, the earnings of Crocker, the nation's 14th largest bank, were declining.

Peacock retired to his ranch in Texas, and Chairman Solomon went headhunting. Last week, with the board's enthusiastic approval, he introduced his catch--a big one. Thomas R. Wilcox, 57, former vice chairman of New York's First National City Bank, will succeed Solomon as Crocker's chairman and chief executive on April 30.

As if to signify a change in style, Wilcox showed up at the bank dressed in tweeds and--yes--brown shoes. He is an aggressive manager who has fought his way right to the very top. In 1934, while taking night courses at New York University, he began at Citibank as a messenger boy (weekly salary: $13.25). His drive and talent impressed his bosses so much that they gave him a fellowship to Princeton. He graduated cum laude in economics.

Ruggedly handsome, articulate and self-confident, "Tommy" Wilcox rose fast. He headed the bank's branch-expansion program in New York City and --perhaps recalling his own humble origins--was especially helpful in getting black businesses started. His only setback came in 1967 when he lost to Walter B. Wriston in a competition for chairmanship of the U.S.'s second largest bank. Not being No. 1 cramped him, though, and Wilcox quit in 1971 to join the investment firm of Blyth, Eastman, Dillon & Co. There, says a friend, he turned down "about 50,000 job offers." Then Crocker offered him an irresistible challenge. Gauging Wilcox's reputation, one Crocker banker looks ahead and says, "A lot of people here will have to start working hard again."

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