Doug Sawyer says there are differences between being a top executive at Bank of America and the president of a new bank. “At BofA I had a staff of dozens that could do whatever project needed to be done,” Sawyer says. “When you come to a startup you’re working with a very small staff. You look around to see who’s going to do it and you realize it’s you.”

It is not as though Sawyer, a 27-year industry veteran, doesn’t have help in launching Legacy Bank, which opened its Prospect Street doors less than a year ago. His board is stocked with executives who were once associated with La Jolla’s Scripps bank, including former Scripps directors Chris and James McKellar, and Martin Dickinson, who was a senior credit officer and director at Scripps.

After Scripps Bank’s sale to U.S. Bank in 2001, they helped form the nucleus of Legacy Bank. The privately held bank has just 27 shareholders, but Sawyer sees an advantage to a relatively small number of investors. “Generally shareholders have larger investments so you have fewer investors with larger investments and they’re pretty motivated to work really hard on your behalf,” he says.

As La Jollans approached former Scripps board members and told them how much they missed their local bank, Sawyer says he was “going through a process” where Bank of America wanted him to relocate to its corporate headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.

“I’ve lived in San Diego basically my entire life so I wasn’t about to do that, so those two things came together,” he says. “I was approached by Chris McKellar and we had never met, but it became clear that Chris is a bright guy who understands banking and has a passion for La Jolla.”

By spring 2002, Sawyer was on board at Legacy. While Scripps board members helped organize Legacy, former Scripps chairman of the board Bill Nelson signed on with Regents Bank, another new La Jolla-headquartered bank. Former CEO Ron Carlson moved up I-5 to start Landmark National Bank in Solana Beach. But Sawyer says there’s room for all three in the La Jolla area.

“When Security Pacific merged into BofA and First Interstate merged into Wells, there were six La Jolla-headquartered community banks or savings and loans,” Sawyer says. “All of those ultimately proved to be pretty successful. La Jolla Bank & Trust and Scripps got bought out and the big banks consolidated and created the opportunity for the new banks you see today.”

Sawyer says there are 60 percent more deposits in financial institutions nationally than there were in 1988, and fewer institutions chasing them. “There’s plenty of room for all of us to be successful.”

In addition to guiding the new bank, Sawyer also is chairman of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, a job that adds from 10 to 25 hours a week to his schedule. Although Sawyer says the dual jobs are an example of burning the candle at both ends, he credits his chamber work with “providing me with the opportunity to get tremendous exposure for the bank in ways that I never could have bought.”