Union National Bank

Wise and Burke promoted at Union National BankJames C. Wise has been named vice president, director of marketing and a member of the management team at Union National Bank.He joined the bank Oct. 13. He has 36 years' experience in the banking industry, many of those in Carroll County.Wise has a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Upper Iowa University in Fayette, Iowa. He also is a graduate of the School of Bank Marketing at the University of Colorado and the Maryland/Virginia School of Bank Management at the University of Virginia.

The county has opened sealed bids for several vehicles and found that each proposed contract had drawn only one vendor.Bare Truck Center in Westminster offered the only bid -- rTC $91,983.83 each -- for two single-axle dump trucks. Hertz Equipment Rental of Baltimore declined to bid.Bare also bid $66,391.42 each for two rollback diesel trucks.Finch Services of Westminster bid $31,796 on a general purpose tractor.S. M. Christhilf/Modern High Lift of Timonium bid $29,159 on a tandem roller.

A Davidsonville man pleaded guilty yesterday to robbing an Edgewater bank, admitting that he threatened tellers at the First Virginia Bank with a knife and took $5,520.Andre Lavar Evans, 18, of the 400 block of Heitzman Road could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years for the felony.Evans was charged with four robberies from June to July last year, at Washington Federal Savings Bank in the 3100 block of Solomons Island Road in Edgewater on June 16 and June 23; First Union National Bank in the first block of Parole Plaza on June 26; and the First Virginia Bank in the 2700 block of Solomons Island Road on July 29.Evans was arrested by FBI agents Oct. 20. His trial in February ended in a hung jury.

A Baltimore jury awarded one of the largest legal judgments in Maryland history - $276 million - to a Catonsville businessman yesterday who said First Union National Bank defrauded his software company and started a $2.4 billion business venture with his ideas. The award in Baltimore Circuit Court followed a six-week trial in which lawyers successfully argued that First Union, now Wachovia Corp. and the nation's fourth-largest banking company, double-crossed the software company owner, Scott Steele.

Anne Arundel County Councilman Thomas W. Redmond has struck a deal with a bank that should keep him out of jail despite his failure to clean up a financial mess surrounding an apartment house he owns.An attorney for the Pasadena Democrat told Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Eugene M. Lerner yesterday that First Union National Bank had agreed to refinance Redmond'sthree-unit building in Ocean City that was cited for building code violations before it burned Jan. 24 and went into foreclosure.

First Union National Bank will close its landmark branch at Charles and Baltimore streets downtown this summer, but is attempting to buy the historic property as it expands its Baltimore work force by nearly 200 jobs.Bank officials said they would consolidate the 1 E. Baltimore St. financial center with a branch a block away at 7 St. Paul St., which also houses the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank's Maryland headquarters. The Baltimore Street branch's last day will be Aug. 10."We considered which of the two facilities would best meet our needs," said J. William Knott, First Union National Bank regional president for Maryland.

Elaine A. McReynolds, administrator for the Federal Insurance Administration, will be the keynote speaker for a seminar that will address natural disasters. The seminar, scheduled for 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, will be in the auditorium of Westminster High School.The seminar is underwritten by Carroll County Bank and Trust, Taneytown Bank and Trust, Union National Bank, Westminster Bank and Trust, New Windsor State Bank, F & M Bank and FCNB Bank.Representatives from Community Emergency Preparedness associated with the Office of the Environmental Services for Carroll County also will attend.

75 years ago: Union National Bank, the oldest banking institution in the county, through the urgent appeal of our businessmen to its directors, will be the first to open its doors tomorrow evening at 7 and keep open until 9 o'clock and every Saturday thereafter, at the same hours until further notice. This will give the country people an opportunity to have their checks cashed and deposit their funds. -- Democratic Advocate, Oct. 26, 1923.100 years ago: It is not an uncommon circumstance to hear sad stories, but we question if a sadder one than the following has ever occurred in any community, which at the time of this writing is happening in the family of Mr. Cleary, a Greek, and workman at the Tannery, near this city (Westminster)

They are five gaunt men, queued up in a Depression-era bread line. Wearing 1930s-style caps and fedoras, hands plunged into the pockets of shabby coats, each appears isolated in his own desperation.For renowned sculptor George Segal, these figures he created and installed as part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial dedicated in Washington last year are among his most ambitious and personally meaningful works. The 73-year-old lived through the Depression. He even used himself as a model for one of the figures.

First Union Corp., the nation's sixth-largest banking company, plans to build its equity-trading operations in Baltimore into a major center that could house as many as 150 employees by next summer, its top official in Maryland said yesterday.J. William Knott, president of First Union National Bank/Maryland, said the company is hiring traders locally and that others are moving to First Union's 7 St. Paul St. tower from Wheat First Union's trading desk in Richmond, Va.Knott said eventually all of First Union's trading operations in Richmond could move to Baltimore.