EMPORIA GAZETTE ARTICLE: MICHAEL R. WISE (Former Emporia 1011th unit member)

Ex-Emporian Mike Wise suicide at 64
By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009


Former Emporian Michael R. Wise died Wednesday, April 8, 2009, at a hospital near Tampa, Fla., after falling from the top of a parking garage at Tampa International Airport. The incident happened about 11:54 a.m.

Wise, whose early promise in the Emporia financial community turned to scandal when he became the center of the Silverado Savings debacle in 1988 in Colorado, was 64 when he apparently committed suicide.

Paramedics from the Tampa fire and rescue department were called to the scene at the airport.
“They rendered first aid,” Tampa Tribune reporter Josh Poltilove said in an interview Tuesday morning. “He had a pulse. He was taken to an area hospital and was pronounced dead at 1:39 p.m.”

Wise’s body was taken to the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy.
Poltilove said investigators found no indication of foul play. Wise apparently jumped from the ninth floor of the parking garage.

“The medical examiner ruled it a suicide,” Poltilove said. “There’s no indication he left a note.”
Poltilove said there were several witnesses at the garage when Wise jumped.
Wise was taken Monday afternoon to A Life Tribute Funeral Care in Largo, Fla. A representative for the firm said that he was to be cremated and no services were planned.
Wise graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1962 and then from Emporia State University, where he was president of the Student Activities Association, a family spokesperson reported.
After graduation, he worked in Emporia at Bruckner’s men’s clothing store and, by 1970, was listed in the Polk City Directory as treasurer of Columbia Savings, a local financial institution that later moved its headquarters from Emporia to the Kansas City metropolitan area.
Wise was president of the Emporia Chamber of Commerce and took an active role in the community.

“He did have such promise — a wonderful community leader — and accomplished such great things in Emporia,” said retired businessman Paul DeBauge, a friend of Wise who worked with him in the community. “... Mike was just very personable and had a wonderfully open personality, made friends easily.”

Wise liked the challenge of organizing and developing proposals. DeBauge recalled in particular a well-developed proposal Wise presented when officials were deciding whether to remodel or to raze and replace the Emporia Country Club building. Wise’s plan for replacement was not chosen, but he had been prepared and accepted the choice to remodel, DeBauge said.
“Mike always took those things with good spirits,” he said. “Those were the things he enjoyed doing, putting the proposal together. ...

“He was just a very natural leader. It just seemed like whatever he did, he was always very thorough and very efficient. He really loved taking on those kinds of tasks and he always did a really super job.”

Wise created a major success in a statewide program that he proposed to then-Gov. Robert Bennett.

“He is the person that conceptually put together the Leadership Kansas program,” DeBauge said. “He made the proposal; it was to then-Gov. Bennett. Gov. Bennett instantly thought it was a good idea.”

The governor, however, did not want the state budget to finance the new program, which would have operated under the Kansas Department of Commerce. Instead, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a private organization, took over responsibility for Leadership Kansas, now 30 years old.

Wise moved from Emporia to continue his banking career at the then-Mile High Savings & Loan of Littleton, Colo.

“If he had stayed in Emporia, I think that things could have been so much better for him,” said another of Wise’s friends, former Emporian David Walker of Tucson.
Walker said the culture here, less flamboyant than in Denver, was a good setting for Wise’s talents.

“He had so many good ideas. They made such sense,” Walker said. “While he was there and second-in-command to Jodie (Columbia CEO Joe Morris), he really built up Columbia Savings.”
Wise may have wanted to challenge those talents when he “had the opportunity to go out to Denver and take on that third-rate savings and loan.”

Walker described Wise as a “good family man” and as an asset for Emporia with skills to build programs and consensus.

“He was sensible and things were going so well,” Walker said of Wise’s adult years here. “He had a wonderful, stable personality. ... If he could have just stayed on in Emporia I think everything could have been well. I don’t know. That’s just my feeling.”

Wise’s leadership qualities earned him a position on the Federal Home Loan Bank Board of Topeka; he was active with the U.S. League of Savings and was treasurer of the Denver Chamber of Commerce.

With Wise as Silverado’s chief executive officer and President George H.W. Bush’s son, Neil Bush, as a member of the board of directors, Wise, Bush, and other associates stood in the center of a financial storm when Silverado collapsed in December 1988.

The Aug. 13, 1990, issue of U.S. News & World Report described Wise as a successful S&L operator in Emporia.

“He had the tools: Intelligence, a charming manner and impeccable appearance — a born market specialist,” the article said.

He became president of a national S&L marketing association and was an “up-and-comer in the powerful U.S. League of Savings Institutions.”

Under his leadership, Mile High flourished and underwent a name change to Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan of Denver.

Silverado’s assets grew from $83 million in 1980 to $240 million in 1982, the magazine reported and, by 1985, assets reached $1.5 billion.

Its failure captured the nation’s attention, not only because the president’s son was closely linked to the failure but because it reportedly cost taxpayers $1 billion and was part of a phenomenon that brought multiple failures in savings and loan institutions in the U.S.
U.S. News & World Report’s story stated that “The scandal ... has become the flash point for Washington’s bitter, partisan finger-pointing over who is to blame for the horrendous failure of thrifts nationwide, which may cost taxpayers $500 billion by the year 2020. An astonishing $100 billion of that might be spent next year under new (George H.W.) Bush administration budget requests released last week.”

Neil Bush was not indicted criminally, though he reportedly settled out of court for $50,000 as a defendant in a civil suit brought against him and others by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Denver Business Journal and Denver Post reporter Steven Wilmsen wrote one version of the story in a book, “Silverado: Neil Bush and the Savings & Loan Scandal,” published in 1991 by National Press Books.

Wise was acquitted of allegations that he used a $500,000 Silverado loan for personal expenses, according to news reports. As part of the action, however, he was barred for life from working again in the banking industry.

Wise then moved to Aspen, where he was accused of taking $8.7 million from investors in Cornerstone Private Capital, the Times reported. He pleaded guilty in 1999 and was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison in Leavenworth.

After his release, according to news reports, he went to work in a marketing position for Nations Holding Co., a Kansas company that owns CFIC Home Mortgage, for which he worked in Florida.

A spokesman for Nations Holding could not be reached for comment by press time today.