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MICHAEL WISE. The former Kansas clothing salesman became the magnetic chairman of Silverado and was considered for a top S&L regulatory position even as outside auditors were questioning the integrity of Silverado's loans.
KENNETH GOOD. A charming and freewheeling huckster who made and lost $1 million in Texas real estate by the age of 26, he used his high-wattage personality and borrowing power at Silverado to create a real estate empire that gave him toys like his $10 million mansion in Denver's ritzy Cherry Hill. He ended up defaulting on $30 million in loans from Silverado.
BILL WALTERS. Fueled in large part by loans from Silverado, the aggressive Denver developer built up a net worth of $100 million and became chief of the city's Chamber of Commerce. Then he too left Silverado holding the bag on nearly $100 million in bad loans.
LARRY MIZEL. The chairman of M.D.C. Holdings, a huge developer that changed the Denver skyline, he created and shuffled more than 100 front companies as the need arose and used Silverado as his personal piggy bank. The politically powerful builder traded undesirable land to Silverado in exchange for hopeless loans so the books of both would look better to regulators.
These operators were not on the scene in 1956 when Denver builder Franklin Burns, cashing in on the postwar housing boom made possible by the GI Bill, set up a friendly little thrift that eventually became Mile High Savings and Loan. He was doing just what Congress had envisioned when it carved out a role for S&Ls in the early 1930s. Limited by law to making home loans and earning the narrow profit margins provided by a relatively stable real estate market, Mile High was helping propel the great American Dream of home ownership for everyone.
When the small thrift ran into trouble during the inflationary climate of the mid-1970s, it was taken over by Denver businessman James Metz, who saw the sleepy S&L as the future flagship of a financial empire. He named himself chairman and hired Wise, an S&L marketing whiz from Columbia Savings in Kansas, to run the company. The nattily dressed Wise wasted no time in transforming Mile High's small-town image. He launched an ambitious expansion drive, unveiled plans for a glass-and-steel headquarters downtown, and renamed the company Silverado, evoking the dreams of prospectors in the days of the Wild West. Silverado was only the 26th largest S&L in the state, with total assets of $56 million and five offices, but it was ready to go places. Propelled by the oil shock of 1979, petroleum prices were rocketing upward and providing fuel for a ferocious building boom.
Wise too was ready to move. He was eager to shake the small-town dust from his shoes and gain entry to Denver's society. One of his first acts was to hire a public relations firm to burnish his image and put a speechwriter on the Silverado payroll. "I remember him standing up in white tie and tails and pledging $100,000 of Silverado's money to the Denver Symphony," recalls an associate. Chuck Henning, former executive director of the Colorado Savings & Loan League, notes that "Wise was image-conscious and was going through all the proper steps; he was close to ((federal regulator)) Kermit Mowbray, head of the Home Loan Bank Board in Topeka, and everybody figured he was being groomed to become president of the U.S. League of Savings and Loan Institutions."