Noted banker Wes Colley dies at 66

People who worked with Wes Colley say he deserves to be remembered for helping transform a small Chewelah bank into the third-largest community bank in Eastern Washington.

Colley, who retired in September 2004 as president and CEO of AmericanWest Bank and its holding company, died last week. He was 66.

Up until 1998, Colley was president of Bank of the West, based in Walla Walla. That year, the bank was purchased by United Security Bank, which had been started in Chewelah and had grown to about $500 million in assets.

In 2000 the new bank — which had also grown through acquisitions of several other Eastern Washington community banks — renamed itself AmericanWest Bank and made Spokane its headquarters.

During the next seven years, AmericanWest Bank more than doubled its assets to more than $1 billion. The bank has 40 full-service locations across Washington and Idaho.

Only Sterling Savings Bank and Washington Trust, both based in Spokane, have larger holdings among area financial institutions.

“He was an astute banker. He was highly regarded among the banking community,” said Fred Schunter, a retired banker and president of the Northwest Business Development Corp.

Bud Dashiell, who helped start United Securities Bank of Chewelah in 1974, also said Colley gets credit for knowing how to make AmericanWest Bank a success.

“He helped them grow significantly,” said Dashiell.

Colley, after becoming president and CEO of AmericanWest, helped acquire the Bank of Latah, adding more than $100 million in assets, said Dashiell.

“That was a sign of the times then. You had to get bigger to keep up with the competition,” Dashiell said.

Problems with bad loans caused AmericanWest to stumble in 2003 and 2004, however.

After the loans defaulted, the bank had to report a $9.8 million charge in the fourth quarter of 2004.

Schunter said those problems distressed Colley. “They happened on his watch, even though some of them were loans he inherited,” Schunter said.

Colley was born in 1938 in Walla Walla. He served as a medic in the U.S. Army Reserve, and then attended Washington State University. He earned a degree from California Polytechnic Institute.

He took his first banking job in San Francisco, holding a number of positions with Bank of America.

After moving back to the Northwest, he started the Bank of the West in 1976. His retirement from the bank, in the fall of 2004, was due to health concerns, according to an AmericanWest Bank spokesman.

A funeral service and burial were held Monday in Walla Walla.