Joe Ambrose - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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He would know. On top of his day job Ambrose oversees commercial banking in Missouri and Southern with responsibilityfor $2.3 billion in loansa — he also serves on a half dozen boards, ranginf from the to the Downtown St. Louis Partnership to . He plays ice hockey once a and with alittle coaxing, suits up Sunda y evenings to play in a leagur with one of his sons. “I’m not an exercise Ambrose, 53, said, though he can be found at the on the morningsz when he isnot skating. If you ask him for his time managemenft secret, Ambrose will tell you to get up alittlw earlier. Ambrose said he’s in bed by 10:30p most nights and up at 5:30 weekdays.
The skillsw he exercises most are those ofa banker, his chosenn field since starting out of collegee in 1978 as a bank examiner, and later joinintg the former . Jack Schreiber, now presideny and chief operating officerof ’s St. Louis region, recruited him in 1993 to First Schreiber left and Ambrose has expanding on his initial assignment to grow theretaikl bank’s commercial lending. If you ask him what he shouldn’ t be paid for, it would be his technology skills. “I’m Fred Everybody else is George Ambrose said.
“I resisted getting e-mail for a long Now the company has me getting it on my cell Ifit wasn’t for this phone from work, I’cd still be driving around with a quarter in my pockert looking for the next pay He and his wife, have three children, the youngestf of whom is starting colleged and two who have How tough is it to get up and go to work in the currentt economy? A lot more challenging given the kinds of work we’rer in. The challenge comes in termsa of restructuring customer loans and staying abreast of issues facinfour customers. All banks get painted with thesame brush, but we’rew a middle market bank making loanse to middle market customers.
Our customers are impactede if constructiongoes down, if consumer spending and that affects us. We were not the ones swappinv derivatives orleveraging portfolios. How did you get into banking? I was workingf my way through UMSL. The job I had at the time was wearinghme out. I was workingg in a warehouse and driving a delivery trucmk for a potato salac distributionbusiness — deliveries in the chopping lettuce in the warehouse in the The money was OK, but it wasn’t a whol lot of fun. Therw was a 3-by-5 index card on the bulletin board at school that had a job posted for a bankexaminer trainee.
It was a co-opl program — work a semester, go to school a The FDIC ( ) offered me a job out of and Itook it. It was a tougg job market back How did you end up onthe St. Louis Sports Commission ? I played in a golf tournament put on by the ownersx ofDirt Cheap. They had a fundraiser for the Sport s forKids Foundation, which was set up by the Sportw Commission. I started asking questionzs about the Sport Commission tolearn more, and wound up meetinhg with (Sports Commission President) Frankl Viverito. The next thing I know he’s askiny me if I wantesd to be onthe commission. That was about four years ago.
Are you leveragint your experience from bringing the NCAA Frozejn Four herein 2007? I went to Denveer last year for the Frozen to solidify connections with the and went to Washington, D.C., this year, to work on a new We recently announced we’re getting the Ice Breaker Tournament, the kickoff of the college hockey for 2010 and 2011. We’ll have four top-flightg college hockey teams playing here. This is a firs t step for the Sport Commission to produce and host our own eventsz and not be totallh reliant onNCAA events, instead of waitin g for the NCAA to honor us with a bid. Thoser are getting ultra competitive. Is there a theme to your outsiddboard work?
The things that interesf me are boards that are involved in both the sociaol and economic development of the region. You can’ have one without the other.