Brent Beardall, the CEO of Seattle-based Washington Federal (WaFd), is taking a leave of absence after surviving a Utah plane crash that killed the pilot and injured a second WaFd executive, the bank said Tuesday.
Cathy Cooper, WaFd’s executive vice president and chief consumer banker, will assume Beardall’s duties during a recovery period that is expected to last “just a few weeks,” WaFd spokesperson Brad Goode told The Seattle Times.
Nathan Ricks, a Utah businessman and WaFd client, died after the small business jet he was flying crashed immediately after takeoff at 11:36 a.m. Monday at Provo Municipal Airport, airport officials said.
Beardall, Ricks and two passengers — WaFd’s Utah commercial division manager, Dane Margetts, and Ricks’ wife, Joyce Ricks — were reportedly flying to Chino, California, to attend the Rose Bowl college football game in nearby Pasadena.
Beardall sustained broken bones and lacerations in the crash and underwent surgery Monday. Margetts and Joyce Ricks sustained minor injuries, according to a social media post by Provo city officials.
Beardall “definitely was being watched over at some higher level,” the Provo airport’s director, Brian Torgersen, told the Seattle Times, describing the cockpit where the CEO sat as “just mangled … wires and metal.”
“The surgeons at the hospital said they have never seen anybody with that level of damage survive,” Goode told the publication. “And he was conscious and speaking when he was admitted.”
WaFd’s chair, Stephen Graham, expressed condolences for Ricks’ family in a statement Tuesday.
“All of us at WaFd are grateful that Brent is expected to make a full recovery and look forward to his return to normal duties shortly,” Graham said. “We have every confidence in our strong management team’s ability to move forward with the execution of the Bank’s strategy.”
That strategy includes expanding into California. WaFd announced in November it planned to acquire Santa Rosa-based Luther Burbank Corp. — a $654 million, all-stock transaction that is expected to close in the second quarter of this year.
The twin-engine jet involved in Monday’s crash appears to have “banked hard left” shortly after takeoff and its “left wingtip drug on the runway,” after which the “nose hit the ground … just off the runway,” Torgersen said, citing witness accounts and runway markings.
Torgersen said he was plowing snow at the time of the crash but added that the runway had been cleared and that there were “light flurries” and almost no wind at the time of the crash.
The airport closed after the crash and reopened Wednesday. The National Transportation and Safety Administration expects to issue a preliminary report into the cause of the crash in two to three weeks, The Seattle Times reported.
Beardall is “in good spirits,” WaFd’s management team said in an update Tuesday.
“His recovery will be his priority at this time and the healing process is underway,” the bank said.
