Stephen McLin

After graduation, McLin took a job with Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) in Anaheim, California. After working there for a year, McLin attended Stanford University and earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering (1970). Along the way he discovered he was more interested in finance, so then stayed at Stanford and earned an MBA in 1972.

McLin worked much of his career at Bank of America (BofA), buying and selling other companies. He started out as assistant vice president in the cashiers division and in seven years rose to become BofA's top strategist. His first major deal was BofA's purchase of Charles Schwab Corporation, a major discount broker, in 1981. This transaction developed into what New York Times reporter Tom Friedman called a “historic test case for Federal banking laws.”[3] McLin also “engineered” the purchase of failing Seattle-based bank, Seafirst, which enabled Bank of America to enter a state outside California, where it was based.[4] McLin invented a financial structure, which he called “shrink-to-fit financing,” that protected BofA if Seafirst's losses in the energy sector became even worse than they already were.,[5][6]

In 1985 McLin was BankAmerica's third-highest-paid executive, receiving $285,330 in salary.[7] In 1986 McLin became executive vice president and BankAmerica Corp. a subsidiary of Bank of America. In the course of his career at Bank of America, America First and STM Holdings, LLC, McLin negotiated more than 40 transactions, acquisitions and sales, which represented total assets in excess of $32 billion.[8]

In 1987, at the age of 40, McLin left BofA to become president of America First Financial Fund.[9] There he raised $100 million in equity capital to buy two Northern California S&Ls.[10] When America First shut down a decade later it had returned more than $500 million in dividends and gains to its shareholders.

McLin retired at the age of 51, created the McLin Family Foundation,[11] and continues to serve on the Schwab board, which he joined in 1988.

McLin has been married twice. He married Rebecca Missen in December 1965 and they divorced in the summer of 1975. He married Catherine A. Crespi on October 12, 1981. They live in California. McLin has one surviving child from his first marriage, Stephen Dale McLin (born 1969), and two children from his second marriage: Scott Thomas McLin (born 1983) and Stephanie Therese McLin (born 1986). His son Stephen and his wife, Ashley, have one son, Patrick Thomas (born 2002) and lost another to bone cancer, Alexander James (born 2004), in 2018.