News Release

Contact: Elizabeth Masten (415) 974-2133

CASWELL, ATTIYEH ELECTED TO SAN FRANCISCO FED

SAN FRANCISCO, December 29, 1999 -- Member banks in the Twelfth Federal Reserve District have reelected Southern California banker E. Lynn Caswell and retired biotechnology executive Robert S. Attiyeh to the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for three-year terms beginning January 1, 2000.

Caswell, 54, chairman and chief executive officer of Pacific Community Banking Group in Laguna Hills, California, was elected by the smaller community member banks in the Fed's nine-state district. He was first elected to the board in 1996, taking office in January of 1997.

Attiyeh, 65, senior vice president and chief financial officer (retired) and a consultant at Amgen, Inc., in Thousand Oaks, California, was elected by the district's mid-size member banks to represent non-banking interests on the nine-member board. Attiyeh will be completing a three-year term on the board at year end.

A graduate of the University of Arkansas, the University of Virginia Graduate School of Banking, and a number of banking schools across the country, Caswell began his thirty-year banking career in 1970 with the First National Bank, Tulsa, Oklahoma, following three years in a finance-related position with Mobil Oil Corporation in New York. In the 1980s, he served as president, chief operating officer, and director of BSD Bancorp; president and chief executive officer of the Bank of San Diego; president and chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Monarch Bank; and Vice Chairman of Western Bancorp, Los Angeles. In 1997, Caswell founded Pacific Community Banking Group, where he currently serves as its chairman and chief executive officer.

Active in industry and community affairs, Caswell serves as a director of Sun Country Bank in Apple Valley and as a founding director of the Laguna Niguel Senior Citizens Center and the South Coast Medical Center, where he also is treasurer of its foundation. Over the years, he has held numerous leadership positions with the American Bankers Association and the California Bankers Association.

Attiyeh began his career with TRW, Inc., in El Segundo, California, at its Space Technology Laboratories. At TRW's electronics company, he served as business unit general manager in the semiconductor field. In 1967, Attiyeh joined McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, where he was appointed as a director and worked in Scandinavia, Japan, and Los Angeles on the banking and high technology industry sectors. In 1994, he was appointed chief financial officer and senior vice president of finance and corporate development at Amgen, Inc. His responsibilities there encompassed the broad range of financial accounting, reporting, planning and control activities, as well as treasury, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, and real estate operations. Attiyeh retired in 1998 and remains a consultant to the corporation.

Outside of Amgen, Attiyeh serves as a director and past president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, a director of Sasco Electric, and a trustee of the House Ear Institute. He is a past chairman and president of the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles and was a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development in New York.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco provides wholesale banking services to financial institutions in the nine western states through the head office in San Francisco and branch offices at Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve System formulates monetary policy, serves as a bank regulator, administers consumer protection laws, and is fiscal agent for the U.S. government. Head office directors are responsible for overseeing Reserve Bank operations, selecting the Reserve Bank president, providing details of economic trends in their regions, and advising the Bank's president and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on the general direction of monetary policy by establishing the Bank's discount rates.