Other bankers, stock market analysts, even some of his neighbors told Zalokar that he was crazy. "I just dug in my heels," he recalls. "I wouldn't speculate with depositors' money."

By 1990 the real-estate market had collapsed.

From his twelfth floor office in Fairfax, Zalokar looked out at idle construction cranes and big office buildings with FOR LEASE banners across their entrances. Many buildings sat empty, and real-estate values dropped.

Many local bankers ended up with egg on their faces and red ink on their books. Some banks had to sell off lucrative credit card businesses to stay afloat.

Because First Virginia skipped the boom, it also skipped the bust. Suddenly Bob Zalokar looked like one of the smartest guys in town. When real estate collapsed, depositors worried that other banks might fail. "We had a reverse run on the bank," he recalls.

Zalokar was only doing what came naturally. First Virginia's founder, Edwin Holland (a 1994 Hall of Fame laureate), had always focused on consumer and small-business loans. And Zalokar was a Kansas conservative more comfortable with prudence than with risk.

A business major at the University of Kansas, Zalokar never considered any career but banking. He got a summer job here working for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. When he graduated in 1950, the FDIC offered him a post. The FDIC sent examiners to banks all over the country to check the books. That's how Zalokar met Holland, who asked the examiner if he new a bright young person looking for a bank job. Zalokar took the bait and went to work in one of Holland's branches. He rose through the ranks and in 1974 was named president of First Virginia's parent company.

Zalokar always made time for his Northern Virginia community. He has served on the boards of Inova Fair Oaks hospital and the George Mason University Foundation, worked on school-bond initiatives, raised money for Arlington Hospital, and helped the Hospice of Northern Virginia.

Retired from First Virginia since 1994, Zalokar believes the secrets of his success were tenacity and loyalty to his customers, employees, and share holders. All knew that they could bank on those qualities at Bob Zalokar's First Virginia.