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APPRECIATION
Harold Webster Smith,
1911-1997
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Business New Haven
11/3/1997
By: BNH
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Readers of this publication are well aware of our unflagging respect for entrepreneurs and their struggles to overcome the many obstacles to business success. It's a story we seldom tire of, and the recent loss of one of these special people helps to illustrate why.
In 1935, in the middle of what most of us now know only through the history books as the Great Depression, Harold Webster Smith started a bank. He was 24 years old.
No doubt the young Mr. Smith was dismissed by his “competitors” as a brash upstart bound for failure when he incorporated First Federal Savings of Waterbury. For the bank's first year he was its sole employee, a state of affairs that many entrepreneurs, successful and otherwise, can well appreciate. A Brass City native, Harold Smith was born just blocks from the bank's current headquarters. He died on October 24 and at 86 left behind an impressive personal and professional legacy.
By the time of his retirement as chief executive officer in 1987, First Federal had become an important regional financial institution. And even after he turned over the day-to-day reins to his son, James C. Smith, he remained on as chairman until 1995, the year the bank was renamed Webster Financial Corp.
Perhaps it was his roots in Depression-era banking that led First Federal to hew to a tradition of conservative Yankee prudence when others chose a more aggressive, “go-go” style during the 1980s. The outcome was an institution positioned to take unequaled advantage of the early '90s collapse of financial institutions throughout Connecticut.
With an intact capital base and a strong market presence the bank went public and undertook a series of acquisitions that has left it the second largest independent bank in Connecticut, with more than $6.8 billion in assets. Indeed, even as this issue went to press, Webster Financial announced a merger with Eagle Financial, which at more than $2 billion in assets is the third-largest independent bank in Connecticut. The combined institution will have more than $8.9 billion in assets.
We join friends of the Smith family in offering our condolences for their loss. But for the region and the business community, however, we offer an appreciation and our thanks that this Mr. Smith, at least, didn't leave town.
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