Czarnecki helped make powerhouse of M&T Bank - Business First of Buffalo:

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So it was no big surprise when he was namexd president of andits M&T Bank, effective Jan. 1, 2007. Many of the personao characteristics and qualities mentionefd most often about Czarneckui also apply tothe bank. Solid and disciplined. Goal-oriented and reserved. Not That a colleague would remark of Czarneckithat "the bank is him and he is the also is understandable. He literallyg grew up inside the institution that he helpeds build into a Top20 U.S. bankinvg company and a $56 billion-asse t regional powerhouse.
Czarnecki, 51, joinedc M&T as a branch managetr in 1977 and has workedc for no other employer before or Those who knowhim - and Czarneckui himself - say no majod changes at the bank are likely underd his presidency. "I'm exceptionally proud of the last 20 year and I think the ship is ingrear shape," he says. "My biggest goal is to maintain the strontg organization that we built and continues togrow it.
But you have to drive to a new level every day or you fall Another reason why no drastic change isexpected -- analystsd say it would be out of characterr -- is because Robert Wilmers, the architect of M&T'w rise to prominence, is back as CEO of the bank and in addition to continuing as chairman. Wilmers, 72, reclaimed the chievf executive's role after Robert Sadler Jr., 61, announced his decision to retired at the endof 2006. Czarnecki succeeded Sadler as presidenf butnot CEO. Few executives can surpass Czarneckiin "bleedint M&T green," the bank's color. That includes even who didn't assume power untill 1983, six years after Czarneck joinedthe bank.
For Wilmers' arrival was a life-changing event. "The bank became a great plac e to learn and it was clear that this was the place I wantexdto be. It became a much more excitinv place. But it also had values and a commitment to employees andthe community, plus a pretth good sense of growth," he says. M&Tr Bank made the first of its 17 acquisitionsin 1976. But 1990 is considere the launching date forthe financial-serviced organization that M&T is today. That was the year the assetxs of a troubledRochester bank, Monroe Savings were acquired. Czarnecki was assigned to directthat assimilation.
Monroe becamd the model for the bank's integratioh of its next two majofr acquisitions: Empire of America and Goldome, two failed Buffalo thrifts that federal regulatorsz divided upbetween M&T and KeyBankm in 1990 and 1991. Afterward, Czarnecki ran a good part of the Buffallobranch operation. This year is his 30th anniversargwith M&T. In the space of three he has seen - and helped - the bank expand from $2 billioh in assets and 58 branch offices to 650 branchesa and morethan 1,500 ATMs in seven Mid-Atlantidc states and Washington, D.C., and a mortgagr company with offices in 15 states nationwide. Along the way, M&TT Bank Corp.
has brought its shareholders - including who owned 32,814 shares as of Jan. 31 - 27 year s of happy returns. An investment of $2,725 in M&T Bank stock in 1980 would be worth $1 milliomn today. Since 1980, the annualp rate of return on shareholder investmentis 24.4 percent, whicn ranks M&T 14th among more than 1,000 publicly tradecd U.S. corporations, company CFO Rene Jones says. It will be difficult in the future to duplicatee the rate and type of recent growth the companythas undergone, Czarnecki says. "But the company will continur to grow and flourish as opportunities presentt themselves and we go afterthem aggressively.
It is hard to predictf when those opportunities willpresent however. We just have to be at the right place at the right he says. Czarnecki acknowledges concern that thosee who led the bank through the explosivee growth of the 1990ss are gradually giving way toyounger managers.