Walter Ackeret (center) shakes hands with Jim McKenna as McKenna takes over as North Shore president in 1975.

Earl Straight and Walter Ackeret

As we’ve already mentioned this week, North Shore Bank has a reputation for being forthright and careful. You might even say it’s in the company’s DNA, given that two of our early leaders were literally Straight and Ackeret.

Earl S. Straight started out with North Shore in the 1920s, while Walter J. Ackeret — and that actually is pronounced accurate — joined the company in 1932 as one of only four employees at the time. Straight would serve as our director secretary and manager, while Ackeret began as assistant secretary and became president of North Shore Savings & Loan in 1972. When Ackeret retired in 1975, Jim McKenna took the reins as president and, of course, still serves as our executive chairman today.

According to an article from the Spring 2000 issue of Shorelines, Straight and Ackeret’s unusual names earned them the attention of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, which noted how fitting their names were for bank executives.

Correction: An earlier version of this article inaccurately credited Walter Ackeret with with expanding North Shore into a network of branches. Although Ackeret led the bank when the application to add our first branch was filed, he was actually deeply opposed to Jim McKenna’s plans to expand North Shore Savings & Loan into further locations.