Public Meeting Regarding Citicorp and Travelers Group
Thursday, June 25, 1998
Transcript of Panel Twelve
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22 Next panel will be panel 12, Patricia
23 O'Neill Galin, Raymond C. Bowen, Amalia
24 Betanzos, Sue Bastian and Peter Barnett.
25 Ms. Galin, you're first on my list.
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2 MS. GALIN: Ladies and gentlemen,
3 thank you for the opportunity to speak to you
4 regarding the acquisition of Citibank. My name
5 is Patricia O'Neil Galin, and I am the
6 executive director of the These Our Treasures
7 in the Bronx. We are a not-for-profit agency
8 serving youngsters and families for the past
9 twenty-five years.
10 Twenty-five years ago there were many
11 banks to choose from regarding loans, credit
12 lines, et cetera. Citibank was the only
13 banking institution who considered loans and
14 the credit line for this Bronx organization.
15 Citibank continues twenty-five years
16 later to be a major influence in the Bronx
17 community, and more particularly has helped
18 These Our Treasures with our vision and mission
19 to provide services to young disabled children
20 and their families.
21 As we have grown since 1973 with
22 children and families and a budget of $288,000
23 to a budget of over three and a half million
24 dollars, Citibank has influenced our growth and
25 has truly been a friend to TOTS.
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2 Thank you.
3 MR. LONEY: Mr. Bowen.
4 MR. BOWEN: Good afternoon, members
5 of the Federal Reserve Board, ladies and
6 gentlemen. My name is Raymond C. Bowen,
7 president of the LaGuardia Community College of
8 the City University Of New York. I am here
9 today to speak on behalf of LaGuardia and its
10 long-standing relationship with Citibank.
11 LaGuardia Community College, the
12 youngest institution in the City University,
13 enrolls about 33,000 students, 11,000 in the
14 degree programs and 22,000 in noncredit
15 programs.
16 Our student body is comprised of
17 individuals who are 37 percent Hispanic, 20
18 percent black, 15 percent white, 13 percent
19 Asian, 2 percent native American and 4 percent
20 other, making us one of the most diverse higher
21 educational institutions in America.
22 Also noteworthy is the fact that 66
23 percent of our students are women. About 75
24 percent of our new students reported family
25 incomes under $20,000. Most are on their own
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2 and in need of work in order to support
3 themselves. Many of our students work while
4 they are enrolled at LaGuardia, 46 percent
5 part-time and 54 percent full-time.
6 We have the fifth largest foreign
7 student enrollment of any Community College in
8 the country. Our students are drawn from over
9 135 countries speak 85 languages other than
10 English. For several consecutive years
11 LaGuardia Community College has ranked among
12 the top community colleges in the country in
13 graduating minority students.
14 In 1977 LaGuardia ranked fifth among
15 the nations two-year institutions in awarding
16 degrees to minorities. Priority initiatives
17 for the college include cultural pluralism,
18 economic development, and international
19 education.
20 LaGuardia has also been recognized by
21 the US Department of Education as a model
22 Community College both nationally and
23 internationally. As a collaborative
24 partnership between the college and the New
25 York City Board of Education LaGuardia hosts
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2 three model high schools on its campus; the
3 Middle College High School creates a unique
4 educational opportunity for students who are at
5 risk of dropping out; the International High
6 School serves recent immigrants from numerous
7 countries by offering a comprehensive secondary
8 curriculum while developing students oral and
9 written English language competence, and the
10 Robert F. Wagner Institute for Arts and
11 Technology, a New Visions school that takes the
12 standard core curriculum and melds art and
13 technology into every phase.
14 From its inception LaGuardia
15 Community College has been a cooperative
16 education institution based on the premise that
17 learning should take place in a variety of
18 settings both inside and outside the classroom.
19 The cooperative program is designed
20 to help students determine their individual
21 goals, explore various career options, apply
22 classroom learning to real work situations, and
23 strengthen interpersonal and technical skills.
24 LaGuardia Community College has the
25 largest cooperative education program of all
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2 two-year institutions. This collaboration will
3 have a dynamic impact on the lives of the
4 students and families that LaGuardia serves and
5 we look forward to many new positive ventures.
6 Needless to say that we at the
7 college are extremely excited to learn that
8 Citicorp and the Travelers Group have made a
9 ten year commitment of $115 billion to lending
10 and investing in low and moderate income
11 communities and small businesses.
12 In addition to providing special
13 pricing to low and moderate income consumers
14 interested in commercial and homeowner
15 insurance coverage, I was particularly
16 interested in the financial and technological
17 literacy program proposed in this merger.
18 As an urban educator I also agree
19 along with both Citicorp and Travelers Group,
20 that consumers need financial and technical
21 skills, as well as access to superior products
22 and services, if they are to achieve financial
23 well being.
24 The opportunity for educators to join
25 an advisory panel on financial literacy who
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2 will assist the bank in understanding the
3 problems of this diverse population, and to
4 ultimately develop effective solutions to meet
5 their needs is critical and warranted endeavor.
6 Citibank is no stranger to LaGuardia
7 Community College. Whether supporting programs
8 for our older adults on wellness and consumer
9 education, or providing funding for our college
10 for childrens programs, over the years,
11 Citibank grants have helped all segments of our
12 population.
13 In our high schools, Citibank has
14 been a responsive partner in addressing the
15 need for SAT test preparation, in preparing our
16 students to enter the world of finance, and in
17 understanding the responsibilities associated
18 with savings, credit and money management.
19 Citibank has provided our students with hands
20 on exposure to financial curricula that the
21 college was unable to offer.
22 They have also supported many
23 cultural events through our Academic Excellence
24 Program. Citibank has also been involved in
25 our Talent Search Program which is a
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2 comprehensive support service program designed
3 to facilitate access to post-secondary
4 institutions for low income and first
5 generation college students from Western
6 Queens.
7 I am proud to say that during this
8 academic year nineteen LaGuardia students have
9 been hired as interns at various Citibank
10 locations, including Court Square, Wall Street
11 and Citicorp Center, and five LaGuardia
12 graduates have accepted permanent employment.
13 Three students have been hired as
14 interns in a partnership between Citibank and
15 Cushman & Wakefield for this summer. In
16 addition, a permanent annual donation of $3,000
17 has been given to LaGuardia's Partners in
18 Cooperative Education for scholarships.
19 Citibank administrators and staff
20 have worked hand in hand with LaGuardia
21 Community College over the past 25 years as a
22 mentor, sponsor and a friend.
23 On behalf of LaGuardia Community
24 College, its faculty, staff and students and
25 alumni, I am proud to support the merger of
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2 Citibank and Travelers Group and look forward
3 to benefits of this merger which will bring to
4 many of our students and various programs who
5 depend upon us and Citibank to help them to
6 fulfill their dreams.
7 Thank you for this opportunity to
8 speak on behalf of LaGuardia Community College
9 for the proposed merger between Citibank and
10 the Travelers Group.
11 MR. LONEY: Thank you, Mr. Bowen.
12 Ms. Betanzos.
13 MS. BETANZOS: Thank you. Good
14 afternoon. My name is Amalia Betanzos, and I
15 offer this testimony in support of the proposed
16 acquisition by Travelers Group with Citicorp.
17 I am the president and CEO of the Wildcat
18 Service Corporation, a not-for-profit human
19 service agency which has provided training and
20 employment opportunities to more than 70,000
21 New Yorkers since 1972.
22 Our agency assists the most
23 disadvantaged and underserved populations in
24 the city, including ex-offenders, ex-addicts,
25 long-term welfare recipients and at-risk youth.
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2 Travelers group's illustrious history
3 has been punctuated by providing continuing and
4 generous support to a growing number of diverse
5 communities and their residents throughout the
6 country. Travelers' commitment to increasing
7 the capacity and well being of the
8 disadvantaged and its commitment to community
9 is unsurpassed.
10 This commitment permeates throughout
11 the Travelers organization's staff and its
12 subsidiaries. Our own experience at Wildcat is
13 demonstrative. This year, Salomon Smith
14 Barney's MIS staff contributed furniture and
15 computer equipment and volunteered hundreds of
16 hours of time to help Wildcat fill the computer
17 training lab at a shelter for battered women on
18 the lower east side of Manhattan.
19 This one of a kind effort has become
20 a model for enabling shelter-bound residents to
21 receive much needed job skill training without
22 the cost or the risk of traveling throughout
23 the city to attend school, and serves as an
24 example of what private industry can do to help
25 those with multiple barriers to employment.
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2 In addition, three years ago, two
3 years prior to the enactment of the historic
4 new federal welfare reform legislation, Smith
5 Barney, now Salomon Smith Barney a Travelers'
6 subsidiary pioneered with Wildcat in an
7 innovative training and employment program for
8 single mothers receiving welfare.
9 Approximately one year ago Travelers
10 lent its full support to begin that program
11 with two other subsidiaries, Commercial Credit
12 Company in Baltimore and Primerica Financial
13 Services in Atlanta, Georgia. These welfare
14 women after six months training, three months
15 with Wildcat and three months of internship
16 with Travelers Smith Barney, get jobs that
17 average $24,000. It really is wonderful to
18 contemplate that these women who were on
19 welfare and had no hope of getting off welfare
20 after one year now own Travelers stock in
21 addition.
22 Despite these accomplishments,
23 Travelers was not content to see the program
24 nourish only with within its own corporate
25 sphere, and so the senior management has
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2 recently reached out to sister companies and
3 competitors in the financial services industry,
4 and has brought five additional Wall Street
5 giants together to develop similar programs
6 with Wildcat. This is as unique and unselfish
7 and undertaking as I've seen in my thirty years
8 in public office and private enterprise.
9 Travelers has demonstrated time and
10 time again as it expands, so do the benefits
11 and opportunities that accrue to every member
12 of the community in which it develops roots,
13 and in particular to the most disadvantaged and
14 marginalized youth and adult residents of these
15 communities.
16 I am confident that this merger with
17 Citi will bring the strength of Travelers and
18 the strength of Citicorp together. Citicorp
19 also has had a wonderful record of dealing with
20 nonprofit organizations and helping to employ
21 welfare recipients in their banks, and we are
22 currently working on a program that started way
23 before merger talk, to make sure that more
24 Wildcatters who will be fully trained by
25 Citibank and by Wildcat, will have the
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2 opportunity to really remake their lives.
3 I'm certain that consistent with both
4 their long history of expanding assistance to
5 the needy as they expand their only commercial
6 activities, the acquisition of Citicorp by
7 Travelers will provide a new generation of
8 support and an extended commitment to assist
9 those most in need and, therefore, I urge the
10 acquisition be approved.
11 Thank you.
12 MR. LONEY: Thank you. Ms. Bastian.
13 MS. BASTIAN: Yes. Good afternoon
14 Federal Reserve Board members, ladies and
15 gentlemen.
16 I am here as the president of
17 Teaching Matters Inc. to describe our
18 relationship with the Citicorp Foundation.
19 Teaching Matters Inc., CMI is a New York City
20 based nonprofit organization founded four years
21 ago by Elizabeth Ruletin.
22 Our mission is to help teachers in
23 the New York City public schools learn to use
24 the technology that is everywhere in a creative
25 and effective way to strengthen student
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2 performance.
3 To date we've served over 350 schools
4 and this year we're working in 190 schools. We
5 send approximately 35 to 40 teacher trainers in
6 technology into the five boroughs everyday.
7 Our recent accomplishments were to
8 work with the Board of Ed to write their
9 strategic development plan for technology.
10 We're funded, proud to say, by Annenberg and
11 J.P. Morgan, and Seagram's, and we are
12 partnership in the Department of Education
13 challenge grant.
14 We have at TMI a three year history
15 of collaboration with Citibank which began in
16 1995 with their support of $140,000 for the
17 first CitiTech series gateway to technology
18 planning for high school educators. We felt
19 that the principals of the schools were being
20 left out of the education everyone needs about
21 what to do with this puzzling phenomenon called
22 technology, telecommunications and the
23 computer.
24 The series provided a leadership
25 institute for staff and for leaders in the
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2 metropolitan area, including Westchester and
3 Long Island.
4 We followed that kind of initial
5 exposure up with very regular visits to those
6 schools. Because of the attendees enthusiasm
7 for the quality of training they received,
8 Citibank funded us for a second year. The
9 second series reached 30 high schools, the
10 first one I believe approximately 35.
11 The bank's commitment again was
12 approximately $140,000. Last year we were
13 pleased to receive a third grant from Citibank
14 foundation for new thinking, new teaching,
15 technology across the curriculum in order to
16 bring the curriculum into subject matter area,
17 and not have technology be an end in itself.
18 We target the mayor's project smart
19 principals this year and the teachers. We're
20 working with 110 teachers in two districts.
21 Through their banking on education programs
22 Citibank's contribution has been significant.
23 The Foundation's ongoing commitment
24 is evident time and time again to the public
25 school. Their contributions have been careful,
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2 informed and comprehensive. They focused both
3 on the principal and the classroom teacher many
4 of whom are in underserved neighborhoods. It
5 is our belief that the Citicorp Foundation has
6 helped establish the standard of what good
7 corporate philanthropy is all about.
8 Thank you.
9 MR. LONEY: Thank you, Ms. Bastian.
10 Mr. Barnett.
11 MR. BARNETT: That was the cry of the
12 poor. A lot of people don't want to hear it.
13 A lot of people can't hear it, and Glenn, Scott
14 and James and Barbara, I want to tell you that
15 Citibank is one of the few places that hears
16 the cry of the poor and the needy and does
17 something about it.
18 I can remember a very poor community
19 out on Long Island called Wyandanch and on that
20 community there are many poor and homeless
21 families. On Long Island if you're a mother
22 with three children you need to have about
23 $30,000 a year to come in to survive on Long
24 Island to have a decent house, food and a junk
25 car to get around in.
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2 What Citibank does is care about
3 other people. I really don't know the
4 corporation, but I know what Citibank has in
5 one person.
6 I've been working with a woman named
7 Michelle Debenedetto who is an employee of
8 Citibank and her main job is to look around at
9 the communities of Long Island and say, what is
10 needed? What can the not-for-profit groups do
11 to help the poor and needy of Long Island? And
12 she does it.
13 She is a mother with a great heart
14 and she represents what I feel is what's needed
15 in America today with corporations, to help
16 those who are in need, and Citibank is one of
17 those groups that does that.
18 (Continued on next page)
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2 MR. BARNETT: Wynandach Homes &
3 Properties is my nonprofit that builds and
4 renovates houses for homeless women. We take
5 them out of the shelter, we take them out of
6 their cars, we take them out of tents that they
7 are living in and we give them a clean, decent
8 place to live. Then we help them get educated.
9 We help them get into GED programs. We help
10 them get their AA degree at Suffolk Community
11 College. We help them get a decent job where
12 they are on the road to making that $30,000.
13 Citibank over ten years ago -- when I
14 was just starting, just starting to get some
15 money to do funding -- gave us the money to
16 hire a summer intern, a woman that later we
17 were able to hire full time; again, with help
18 from Citibank, to work with these mothers to
19 bring them from welfare to being
20 self-sufficient women taking care of their
21 families, with their degrees, getting a chance
22 to make their AA degree.
23 One of the things I find that with
24 these mergers -- and we are not going to stop
25 it; I was reading today another AT&T and
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2 Cablevision merging -- they are happening. It
3 is the way companies are stabilizing these
4 days. And what I am hoping to see with
5 Citibank's merger is that they are going to
6 create a very strong bank and they are going to
7 create a very strong corporation that is going
8 to have a heart, it is going to have the heart
9 of Michelle DiBenedetto, because she's there
10 and she's going to tell the banks and tell
11 Travelers, you've got to stay committed to
12 helping the poor and the needy. I think that
13 is what is going to happen.
14 The Federal Reserve Bank two years
15 ago started a program called LIHPPI. It was
16 called the Long Island Home Purchasing Process
17 Initiative. They helped bring together all
18 sorts of banks and nonprofits on Long Island,
19 saying how can we help people in minority
20 communities, people who are just making that
21 $30,000 buy a house on Long Island. Citibank
22 through its funding and its creative work with
23 Michelle and other people that she brought in
24 from Citibank created pamphlets, that we are
25 getting into every library, every school on
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2 Long Island, "Breaking the Barriers to Home
3 Ownership, Guides to Purchasing a Home." These
4 are things that are needed. These were worked
5 out with not-for-profit groups like myself to
6 help them make a difference.
7 One of the things I find is that many
8 corporations need to hear the poor. They need
9 to hear the voice of the needy. And one of the
10 things that Citibank will do is help bring that
11 about. As they grow and develop, I have no
12 doubt that they are going to help people hear
13 that voice, people to care about the needy.
14 There was a speech given by Carl
15 Messenger to the United Nations in 1981 -- I
16 will just end with this -- where he spoke to
17 corporate America and said: In corporate
18 America, as you prosper, you can't just get up
19 there all by yourself, but you have to help
20 those rise with you, and we have to learn that
21 we all have to rise together. If one segment
22 of our society gets up there all by itself, it
23 will tackle. It can't handle the attitude.
24 You have to bring everybody else up with you.
25 Carl Messenger said it this way, and
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2 I believe that Citicorp believes in this:
3 People are unreasonable, illogical,
4 self-centered; love them anyway. If you do
5 good, people will accuse you of selfish
6 ulterior motives; do good anyway. If you are
7 successful, you will win false friends and true
8 enemies; try to be successful anyway. The good
9 you do today will be forgotten tomorrow; do it
10 anyway. Honesty and frankness make you
11 vulnerable; be honest and frank anyway. People
12 favor underdogs, but I notice they follow the
13 top dogs; fight for some underdogs anyway.
14 What you spend years building may be destroyed
15 overnight; build anyway. People really need
16 help, but they may attack you if you help them;
17 try to help people anyway. Give the world the
18 best you have and you'll get kicked in the
19 teeth; give the world the best you have anyway.
20 Thank you.
21 MR. LONEY: Thank you. I like that.
22 Any questions from the panel? If
23 not, then I will thank you for coming and
24 sharing your experiences with us.
25 We are going to take a 15-minute
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2 break and be back at 4:25.