By Eleanor Boswell-Raine,
Globe Associate Publisher

Last week Washington Mutual Bank President and CEO Steve Rotella met with Globe Publisher Vernon Whitmore and Associate Publisher Eleanor Boswell-Raine to talk about the WaMu/Globe business partnership pilot that began in 2007.

   Rotella was in town for a WaMu management recognition event held at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.
    The objective of the Wa- Mu/Globe relationship is to deliver a steady stream of financial literacy information, products and financial strategies to readers of the ethnic press. The Globe launched the program in Alameda and Contra Costa counties last year, reaching people who read its community newspapers, visit the Globe website and receive Globe news emails.
    In January WaMu decided to expand the partnership and to include new locations in Seattle, Phoenix and Los Angeles. “We need to do this everywhere to bring this kind of service to as many communities as we can,” said Rotella.
    Rotella, who joined Wa- Mu in 2005 after years working for Chase and J.P. Morgan, oversees the company’s retail, credit card, home loans and commercial business lines. He also manages the company’s day-to-day administration and marketing and technology groups.
    He said he believes in giving back to the community and is active on three community boards in Seattle, where he resides.
    Addressing the diversity of the WaMu workforce, Rotella said that the company is doing a good job in its branches, most of which reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. However, he said, WaMu has a ways to go in developing that level of diversity in the upper levels of management. Currently, he oversees an aggressive recruitment program to prepare ethnic management candidates from within the company and to hire them from the outside.
    Despite the current national mortgage crisis and growing inflation, Rotella said he believes in the company’s ability to make a difference.
   “I believe passionately in WaMu’s values: fair, caring, human, dynamic and driven,” he said, adding that those values are good for both customers and for business.
    Rotella urged those who have been adversely affected by the mortgage crisis to come into WaMu and work with the bank’s financial consultants to address their mortgage issues.

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