Henry Yuan Hwang, who founded the first Asian-American-owned federally chartered bank in the United States, died of colon cancer October 8 at his home in San Marino, California.
Mt. Hwang was born in Shanghai on November 28, 1927. At 21, he left Shanghai and went to Oregon. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science in China and earned another at Linfield College in Oregon. He then studied accounting at the University of Southern California and operated a laundry business. He later became a certified public accountant and opened in 1960 one of the first accounting firms in Southern California owned by a Chinese immigrant in 1960.
In 1974, he opened the Far East National Bank with $1.5 million in capital in the Chinatown section of Los Angeles. In 1967, the bank was bought by Bank Sino-Pac of Taiwan for about $90 million.
Mr. Hwang was also a leading Republican Party supporter. In 1984, President Reagan appointed him to the White House Advisory Committee on Trade Negotiations.
In 1989, Mr. Hwang was at the center of a major scandal in Los Angeles when it was disclosed that he had hired Tom Bradley, then the mayor, as a consultant. Mr. Bradley had also received a loan from the bank and appeared to have helped it secure $2 million in deposits of city funds.
Mr. Bradley resigned from the consultancy, returned his $18,000 in payments and was never charged with wrongdoing.
In 1976, Mr. Hwang told the police he had been abducted, made to drink a liquid that disoriented him and robbed of $300,000. The bizarre case was never solved.
Mr. Hwang is survived by his wife of 50 years, the former Dorothy Huang; his son, David, his daughters, Margery Anne of Rochester, and Grace Elizabeth West Hollywood; two brothers; two sisters; and four grandchildren. (Source: Douglas Martin, The New York Times, Oct. 13, 2005)