Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (91%); ARMED FORCES (90%); ANXIETY DISORDERS (90%); MENTAL ILLNESS (90%); NAVAL VESSELS (89%); NAVIES (89%); MILITARY HELICOPTERS (89%); SUBSTANCE ABUSE (77%); DEPRESSION (75%); MILITARY DEPENDENTS (72%); DEFENSE DEPARTMENTS (71%); ALCOHOL ABUSE & ADDICTION (65%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (90%) NEW YORK, USA (93%) UNITED STATES (93%); IRAQ (79%)
LOAD-DATE: May 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Whistlin' Dixie's Texas Tavern on 11th Avenue advertised its proximity to Pier 88 and enticed sailors with free-drink cards.(PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSH HANER/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

(PHOTOGRAPH BY HIROKO MASUIKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Above, Mike Smith is a former Navy man with some 40 tattoos. Above right, Chief Frank Montano's tribal frog.(PHOTOGRAPH BY HIROKO MASUIKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

739 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 25, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Wall Street Exodus: Fear, Panic And Anger
BYLINE: By SARAH KERSHAW
SECTION: Section BU; Column 0; Money and Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1967 words
THE mind wraps itself around losing a job, one of life's great traumas, in jagged and swerving fits. When the call comes in, when rumor turns to reality, when it's not the broker in the next cubicle but you who is presented with a stack of severance papers, the psyche takes over.

It goes numb. It goes into survival mode. Fear quickly turns into anger. For some, there may be relief in saying goodbye to what therapists call the ''psychological terror'' that has haunted the corridors of troubled financial institutions since last summer. But what follows -- the unknown -- may be no less frightening.

Since August, banks worldwide have announced plans to eliminate as many as 65,000 jobs. Many losing their jobs now have lived through other crises on Wall Street -- the 1987 market crash, the widespread layoffs of the early 1990s and the financial upheaval of 1998. But investment bankers, recruiters and psychologists say the current economic downturn, the cascade of layoffs and the steady beat of grim financial news have exacted an especially daunting psychic price.

''These are people's lives,'' said an investment banker in his 30s who was laid off in November from his job at a Bank of America office in New York. ''It's not head count. We're not cattle.''

Like other employees interviewed for this article, the Bank of American employee spoke on the condition of anonymity. He and several others who were laid off said that under the terms of their severance packages, they are not permitted to sue the company or to speak out negatively about it.

In an e-mail message, Bank of America said: ''Job reductions are sometimes a necessary course of business, but they are never easy, whether you are receiving the message or delivering it. We always try to be as respectful as possible.''

Even for some of those who survive a job cut, the emotional landscape can change. ''It's like I woke up and I'm in a different country,'' said a person who has worked for Merrill Lynch for more than two decades and has weathered a recent round of layoffs there.

He described widespread anger, mistrust and angst at Merrill, both among those leaving and those staying. ''People are reeling,'' he said. ''The culture has turned. It is a nasty culture.''

Merrill Lynch laid off 20,000 people in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and while many Wall Street workers say the deaths of co-workers were a shattering experience, they draw a distinction between banks' actions then and now. Merrill has laid off 4,000 employees this year. In this round, ''these were self-inflicted wounds,'' the Merrill employee said.

The Merrill banker spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying the company does not permit employees to speak to reporters without permission, and he said he feared retribution if he sought that permission or identified himself.

Officials at Merrill Lynch declined to comment.

MARLIN S. POTASH, a Manhattan psychologist who specializes in financial issues and whose practice has been overwhelmed with new clients from Wall Street in recent months, describes the emotional reaction as ''the depression of the depression,'' even as she acknowledges that the economy hasn't ground into a recession, let alone a depression.

''This time versus other times, it feels like there are more moving parts moving faster, and more unpredictability,'' she said. ''The lack of predictability seems to be taking a huge psychological toll.'' After the crash of 1987, for example, the markets stabilized quickly.

And even with the financial markets gaining some ground recently, analysts say that there is underlying panic, a sense that more bloodshed lurks, that upturns are only fleeting.

''The financial market volatility leads to a kind of emotional volatility,'' Dr. Potash said. ''There are seismic shifts, up and down and up and down: 'I'm optimistic -- the market's looking good, the mortgage crisis is over. Oh, my God, they canceled an order. I can't concentrate.' ''

Among the patients who have seen Alden M. Cass, a psychologist who treats Wall Street traders and executives, are several who were laid off from Bear Stearns after the bank collapsed.

''They felt as if they were led with blindfolds on into a firing squad,'' Dr. Cass said.

Officials at JPMorgan Chase & Company, which is acquiring Bear Stearns, declined to comment.

Dr. Cass and other psychologists and researchers who have worked with Wall Street employees say that these workers -- often drawn to the intensity and volatility of their profession -- are more prone to anxiety, depression, substance abuse and other mental stresses than the general population. They drive themselves hard. Working 10, 12, 14 hours a day is not only expected; it is also a badge of honor.

In some ways, these experts say, Wall Street types are perhaps better prepared to handle the shock of sudden change than those in more stable professions. But because they are typically measured by the size of their paycheck -- bonuses, in particular -- their self-worth is deeply threatened when the money evaporates.

''We're talking about individuals who base their identities and egos on what they do for a living and how much they make,'' Dr. Cass said.

Yet Wall Street is also a macho, ''don't let them see you sweat'' world where showing self-doubt and weakness, whether to clients or co-workers, is about as welcome as a stock whose value is taking a nosedive.

Still, psychologists say, for those being laid off, whether or not they are comfortable expressing it, there is boiling anger, a sense of betrayal and loss that is bound to rise to the surface.

That appears to be true for the former investment banker at Bank of America who talked about being treated like cattle. He said he went numb when he was brought into a conference room with his manager and told he was being let go. He would get no bonus for 2007, either, typically 40 percent of his $120,000-a year salary, he said, and he was offered eight weeks of severance pay, which he accepted.

''I had no emotional response,'' he said. Yet he is clearly angry now.

''Someone who shows up to work every day, that should engender some sense of loyalty,'' he said. He was at Morgan Stanley in 1998, when it and other Wall Street banks were laying off thousands of workers. He had joined the bank in 1997, and before the layoffs, he said, ''There was a sense of loyalty, they got my back, that sense of pride.''

''But that loyalty idea is gone for most of these banks,'' he said.

He had been with Bank of America for three and a half years when the layoff rumors, swirling in his department for weeks, reached a high pitch. Since October, the bank has cut 1,150 jobs.

He looked for work for six months, ran through his savings and recently found consulting work. He is single, rents an apartment in Manhattan and is still paying off loans from business school, as well as several thousand dollars of credit card debt.

He says he decided to stick to consulting because he no longer believes he can rely on bonuses or the guarantee of a long-term full-time job. With the layoffs, he said, the banks are ''destroying their greatest assets. It's an us-against-them mentality now.''

KATHLEEN GURNEY, a financial psychologist, a researcher and the author of ''Your Money Personality: What It Is and How You Can Profit From It,'' has developed several personality profiles of workers on Wall Street. Each, she says, will respond differently to layoffs.

The ''High Roller'' lives on the edge financially and becomes addicted to the thrill of earning large sums of money. But when things go bad, ''they feel the greatest frustration both financially and psychologically,'' she said in an e-mail message. The most common profile is what she calls the ''Entrepreneur,'' thriving on ambition but not taking as many risks as the High Roller.

''But they can be their own worst enemy in setting up ever-larger challenges and more rewarding challenges,'' she said, and in the face of losing a job, the Entrepreneur may deny the emotional impact.

''Denial is a wonderful defense mechanism as it eases the pain,'' she said, ''but it also delays the day of reckoning.''

A third type is what she calls the ''Money Master.'' People who fit this profile typically earn less than and take far fewer risks than the other two types and are better prepared to handle market swings and even layoffs, she said.

''They can come out of it feeling even more confident than before if they use their flexibility and figure out a new game plan,'' she said.

A 50-year-old Merrill financial adviser had already survived the 1987 stock market crash and crushing waves of layoffs before the Bank of America employee had even graduated from business school. For him, the layoffs at Merrill were not surprising, and the opportunity he took this month for a buyout felt like a gift.

He said that because Merrill would not authorize an interview, he did not want to be identified and risk jeopardizing the package, which provided him with 67 weeks of pay on a $101,000 salary, and the ability to stay on the company health plan, paying out of pocket about $400 more per month than he did when he was with the company.

He said he was sometimes irked by news media coverage that described the layoffs as shocking and devastating.

''If you went to school and you studied this industry and you studied economic cycles, why are you now surprised that this is happening?'' he said. ''It's like going into politics and saying, 'I didn't know I could be voted out of office.' ''

He described himself as very cautious in his own financial affairs and said he began planning for retirement early in life. ''I'm in financial planning,'' he said. ''Isn't it a sin not to do so for yourself?''

For others, though, especially those not close to retirement, the trauma of losing a job and the uncertainty in its wake can be devastating. That is particularly true for Wall Street workers, psychologists say, because their colleagues, family members and neighbors typically consider them to be financially secure.

''Since they are expected to be experts, job loss and financial strain can trigger shame and embarrassment,'' said Bradley Klontz, a psychologist who specializes in financial matters. ''The shame can be similar to a cop who gets mugged.''

FOR a 40-year-old midlevel employee at Bank of America in New York, being laid off was akin to losing her identity.

She had been in the industry for more than 15 years, and at Bank of America for five. But she was quick to say that no one should have a ''pity party'' for her when people earning far less were losing their jobs. In good years, with a good bonus, she earned as much as $400,000.

Still, it was the money that made her feel worth something, she said. ''There's not a sense that you're helping the world,'' she said. ''I'm not curing cancer. If the money goes away, then what?''

She was offered 10 weeks of severance pay. ''When I got laid off, I felt a sense of panic -- what am I going to do next?'' she said. But after that initial shock, she grew calm. ''I don't have to get up anymore and go and pretend things are fine when they're not.''

She spoke on condition of anonymity because she said she feared retribution. She has been looking for jobs, but, as many recruiters say, it is an employers' market.

She has had trouble sleeping; she has lost weight. She started therapy but wonders whether it is helping. Not having a schedule is disorienting. She was accustomed to leaving the house even before her child woke up and getting home after dark.

''The first thing people ask you is what you do,'' she said. ''If you don't do anything anymore, then how do you feel about your- self?''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: LAYOFFS (91%); BANKING & FINANCE (90%); INVESTMENT BANKING (90%); DISMISSALS (90%); MENTAL HEALTH PRACTICE (75%); PSYCHOLOGY (75%); SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACK (75%); TERRORISM (75%); SEVERANCE PAY (72%); BANK FAILURES (70%); ECONOMIC DECLINE (67%); INTERVIEWS (64%); BUSINESS TORTS (63%); ECONOMIC NEWS (52%)
COMPANY: BANK OF AMERICA CORP (57%); MERRILL LYNCH & CO INC (58%)
ORGANIZATION: BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS (59%)
TICKER: BAC (NYSE) (57%); BAC (LSE) (57%); 8648 (TSE) (57%); MLY (LSE) (58%); MER (NYSE) (58%); 8675 (TSE) (58%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS551111 OFFICES OF BANK HOLDING COMPANIES (91%); NAICS522110 COMMERCIAL BANKING (91%); SIC6712 OFFICES OF BANK HOLDING COMPANIES (91%); NAICS523930 INVESTMENT ADVICE (52%); NAICS523920 PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT (52%); NAICS523120 SECURITIES BROKERAGE (52%); NAICS523110 INVESTMENT BANKING AND SECURITIES DEALING (52%); SIC6282 INVESTMENT ADVICE (52%); SIC6211 SECURITY BROKERS, DEALERS, & FLOTATION COMPANIES (52%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (54%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (92%) NEW YORK, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: May 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: (PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. BU1)

Dr. Marlin S. Potash, a Manhattan psychologist, has had a stream of patients from Wall Street.(PHOTOGRAPH BY MARILYNN K. YEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. BU7) CHART: Pain on Wall Street: Employment in the securities industry, having almost regained its pre-Sept. 11 heights, has been declining since August of last year.(Sources: Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association

Bureau of Labor Statistics) Chart details bar graph for Securities Industry Employment in New York City. (pg. BU7)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

740 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 25, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Balancing Art and Business
BYLINE: By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
SECTION: Section NJ; Column 0; New Jersey Weekly Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1922 words
PETER C. SUTTON looked a little weary as he presided over a senior staff meeting at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn. Dr. Sutton had just returned the night before from a business trip to Japan, where he had given a lecture on Vermeer and the Delft School, his specialty, and discussed loans of artworks for future shows at the Bruce. Now he was listening as Nancy Hall-Duncan, senior curator of art, reported on plans for a 2009 show devoted to the French Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley.

Ms. Hall-Duncan's summary, which included details of loan requests and a complementary costume exhibition, was as close as Mr. Sutton would get to working with art that day. Earlier that morning he had met with a board member, then attended a governance committee meeting. Immediately after the staff briefing came another meeting, one with visiting members of the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. By 6 p.m. he had left the museum, heading to what he called a ''donor cultivation event'' at the home of a local collector.

''I am lucky if I get an hour a day dealing with art,'' Dr. Sutton said, after a quick break between meetings to countersign a batch of checks, return phone calls and answer e-mail messages. ''It sounds glamorous, but running a museum is a whole lot of administration and organization. I sit on 12 different committees, and when I am not sitting in meetings, here I am raising money from patrons and donors.''

With an annual operating budget of $4.9 million and 40 employees, the Bruce does 14 shows a year, attracting about 100,000 visitors, including 12,000 schoolchildren.

''Directors are responsible not only for overall administration,'' Dr. Sutton said, ''but also the financial stability of the institution, which means both the expenditure and revenue.''

Dr. Sutton, who was director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford before coming to the Bruce in August 2001, is not alone in devoting a great deal of his time to administrative matters. Take Michael Botwinick, the director of the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, who spent a morning several weeks ago studying changes to the museum's insurance policies. ''It is pretty boring stuff, but incredibly important,'' he said. The same morning, Mary Sue Sweeney Price, director of the Newark Museum, had started her day attending a city-sponsored meeting on diversity in the workplace.

Mrs. Price, who has been the head of the museum for 15 years, is also a former president of the Association of Art Museum Directors.

''These days, to be a successful art museum director,'' she said, ''you have to get sustenance from knowing that you may not have the good fortune to be dealing with art and exhibitions all day, but that the broad range of responsibilities and duties which you are expected to perform make it possible for others on the staff to make it happen.''

As an older generation of museum directors begins to retire, there are an unprecedented number of vacancies in the field; in the last six months alone, there have been openings for directors at more than two dozen major American art museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Dia Art Foundation in Manhattan; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and the Phillips Collection in Washington.

Similarly, there are numerous current or imminent vacancies at museums outside of Manhattan. At the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, N.Y., Neil C. Trager is retiring next month after more than 26 years. At the Princeton University Art Museum, Susan Taylor, who has been on leave since mid-January, will officially depart at the end of June. There are also vacancies at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum on the main campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, where Greg Perry left on Dec. 31; and at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill, N.Y., which has had three directors in the last three years.

Vacancies were recently filled at two high-profile museums in the region. Terrie Sultan joined the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, N.Y., on April 1, replacing Trudy C. Kramer, who had been director for 26 years. Susan Lubowsky Talbott is taking the top job this month at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, which had been vacant for more than a year.

Salaries paid to museum directors are ''disparate,'' Mrs. Price said, depending on the candidates' skills and ''where an institution is in its life cycle.''

Generally, however, ''in nonprofits there is still a huge difference in resources available in comparison to the corporate sector,'' she said.

The changing of the guard at museums often brings with it a renewed emphasis on financial stability, particularly at successful regional museums, which rarely have the large endowments bestowed on their urban counterparts.

''The director's job description has metamorphosed over the last decade as museums have grown in size and are increasingly expected to generate their own revenue,'' Mrs. Price said. ''Obviously, in addition to traditional attributes of connoisseurship and scholarship, candidates for director jobs these days also need to have skills in management, business and other areas like marketing, new technology and, of course, resource gathering, which is more popularly known as fund-raising. And I would probably put this last one top of the list.''

During Mrs. Price's 15-year tenure, the Newark Museum's operating budget has more than tripled, growing to $18 million from $5.6 million. When she joined the museum, 85 percent of the operating budget came from city and state funding, she said. These days it is closer to 60 percent, and Mrs. Price says she spends about 40 to 50 percent of her time working directly or indirectly on fund-raising activities.

Her experience is shared by directors of other museums in the New York region.

''One way or another it just eats into your day,'' said Erik H. Neil, director of the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, N.Y. Last month Dr. Neil completed a $1.5 million renovation of the museum's historic building with money raised from public and private sources. ''Even if you are not at an event or asking a patron for money to support a program, you are always on the lookout for new patrons and potential supporters.''

Fund-raising and the constant pressure to get more people through the door -- audience numbers are an important measure of success, especially for government funding bodies -- are responsibilities that directors of regional museums have in common with their counterparts in major cities. But there are significant differences, clustering around issues of scale, staffing levels and community involvement.

In general, regional art museums tend to be small to medium in size, with operating budgets of $1 million to $10 million. (As a point of comparison, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an annual operating budget of $200 million.) They survive from one year to the next on very tight margins, raising money to put on shows with little endowment to fall back on in hard times. They also tend to give priority to programming rather than people, so they are frequently understaffed. Multitasking is common, even among directors. Dr. Neil said that at one recent fund-raiser he did everything from setting up tables to giving the welcoming speech.

But the most striking difference between metropolitan and regional art museums is their relationship to their community. ''It tends to be much more organic'' in the suburban museums, Mr. Botwinick said, referring to their focus on local audience and outreach.

By contrast, tourists and casual visitors tend to form the core metropolitan museum audience.

''The people who come to a regional museum are usually from the local area and use it genuinely by choice,'' Mr. Botwinick said. ''They see it as part of the fabric of the community and often have a sense of ownership over it and certain expectations about what it provides.''

Mr. Botwinick believes this kind of relationship to a local community is the best -- and the most challenging -- aspect of running a regional art museum.

''It is about understanding what your place is, what your mission is, and being comfortable with that,'' he said. ''But it is also about understanding that this goal doesn't let you off the hook on the highest standards and scholarship. This is not some alternative, dumbed-down version of the real thing. You are part of a national conversation on matters of art and culture, and informed visitors expect the very highest standards.''

Ms. Sultan, 55, the new director of the Parrish Museum, who came from the Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, said she wants the Parrish ''to be known for strong local ties but also to have a more global outlook.''

''I want to be part of a national and global museum network,'' she said.

However, she said: ''To be successful the Parrish has to be a center for community engagement. What matters is how you define community. I'd also like to see us take a leadership role among Long Island museums.''

At the Bruce Museum, where the vast majority of visitors are from a 30-mile radius, ''we cater very much to the local community and do tailor our offerings,'' Dr. Sutton said.

''At the same time, we also try to mix things up, with shows ranging from old masters to contemporary art, with research catalogs and loans from collectors and museums,'' he said. ''It is all about striking the right balance between responsibilities to the community and maintaining a commitment to professional, quality programming.''

To meet those standards, many regional art museums have had to be entrepreneurial, partnering with other institutions to make shows happen or drawing on all the talents and connections of the staff and board. Some regional museum directors continue to curate shows, like Harry Philbrick, at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Conn., who spent a recent day trying to organize the manufacture of 50,000 camouflage-colored tennis balls in China for an outdoor installation by Serge Spitzer. He eventually found a factory in Shanghai that could do it for him.

''As a noncollecting museum, the Aldrich is focused on exhibitions, so I probably have a bit more contact with art and artists than directors at other museums,'' Mr. Philbrick said. ''But it is true that a lot of your time is spent doing things that don't seem to have a lot to do with art.''

Despite his busy schedule, Dr. Sutton recently found the time to curate an exhibition at the Bruce devoted to old master works from the collection of Jacques Goudstikker, a Dutch-Jewish art dealer whose gallery was plundered by the Nazis. Given his expertise in Dutch and Baroque art, the show, which opened this month, was a natural fit for Dr. Sutton, who started as a curator of European art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But even for a show like the Goudstikker, which received $40,000 in a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, he said he spent more time fund-raising than anything else.

Ms. Sultan at the Parrish is determined to try to balance her business and art interests. ''I have a lot of energy and care very deeply about museum management,'' she said. ''But I am in this business because I love art, so I try to make sure that one part of every day at work has something to do with art. I am very directed about that.''