Executive Suite: Michael Vittorio

'Where everybody knows your name," is The First National Bank of Long Island's slogan as it markets itself to an upscale clientele of small-business owners, professionals and others who want VIP service.

That specialization gives bank chief executive Michael Vittorio the perspective on Long Island's business scene of both a lender and a business executive. These days, he says, that perspective reveals a small-business community nervous about the future.

Vittorio started in banking as a teller in 1975, joined First of Long Island in 2002 and was named chief executive in 2003. In an interview he talked about the banking business, small business, housing foreclosures and the Long Island economy.

Although the Federal Reserve says, "We're keeping interest rates low to spur economic activity," there are a lot of negatives involved in that. Think about Long Island and all those baby boomers who are retiring. Well, if you're getting [low rates of return] on your savings money and you probably had your 401(k) destroyed back in '08 and haven't quite recovered from that, how rich are you going to feel and how willing are you to spend money? That Baby Boom population stretches across the nation, and if they feel poor, they're not going to spend, and if they're not going to spend, we're not going to grow.

Certainly there were a few very large banks that some say did inappropriate things. I think a bank like ours, the community bank-type organization, probably was tainted in the minds of the public with the same broad brush. And that's unfair. Life isn't always fair but we try to keep articulating the fact that we are different.

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