Historic Moments

Giving employees time to make an impact

In 1976, Wells Fargo made history by becoming the first major bank to offer employees paid leave to volunteer in their communities in programs of their choice.
Two men sit facing each other at a table. On the table between them is a sign for a prison re-entry program.
Featured photo caption: Fred Romero (left) discusses his volunteer leave at a prison inmate re-entry program based in Hayward, California, 1977. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.

Created by committee

On November 6, 1975, the members of Wells Fargo’s Corporate Responsibility Committee (started in 1972) gathered for their bi-monthly meeting to evaluate the bank’s commitment to being a community partner for positive social change. Past meetings brought lively discussions around evaluations of the bank’s affordable housing and minority owned small business loan programs. Recommendations for more inclusive employment forms, donation policies, and club memberships also emerged in past agendas.

A white brochure with black lettering and light blue image icons titled: Corporate Responsibility Creed.
Corporate Responsibility Creed, 1973. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.

At this meeting, an idea for a new program was introduced by the committee’s Administrative Assistant Lou Cosso. He shared his research on an innovative program that another business had established that offered paid leave for service to the community.

Questions immediately emerged from other committee members. How long should a paid leave last? How many leaves should be granted at one time? What criteria should be used to evaluate the candidates? The one thing that was never questioned was if Wells Fargo should try it. Every member was in universal agreement that it would be a benefit to community partners who often needed personnel more than they needed money. The advantage for employees was also clear as many often contacted the committee asking to take active roles in helping the bank solve social problems.

By July 1976, the Social Service Leave program was in motion with bulletins in offices throughout the bank recruiting candidates. While a few other businesses had started similar programs, Wells Fargo became the first major bank in the nation to offer a paid leave for employees to help out at organizations of their choice.

Fred Romero from Wells Fargo’s Data Processing Division was the first employee selected to serve. Fred was born in Nicaragua, and had spent his early life in Costa Rica before attending City College in San Francisco. He started working for Wells Fargo while attending classes, and had been an employee for 10 years when his application for Social Service Leave was accepted. Fred had been volunteering as a tutor at the San Francisco County Jail in San Bruno. He used his six month paid leave as an opportunity to develop a stronger tutor program at the San Bruno jail and to work with a Hayward based prison inmate re-entry program.

Since 1976, the program has evolved. The length of paid leaves has shifted as the number of employees awarded a leave has expanded. Today, Wells Fargo provides an innovative and comprehensive portfolio of volunteer opportunities that allows for employees across the globe to engage where and how they want.

Two men sit facing each other at a table. On the table between them is a sign for a prison re-entry program.
Fred Romero (left) discusses his volunteer leave at a prison inmate re-entry program based in Hayward, California, 1977. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.
Two images, first is a woman wearing an apron cooking in a kitchen. The second is large dinning room with tables around the room edges. People are seated at the tables eating.
Linda Bjork worked as an operations officer for Wells Fargo when she took a paid leave in 1979 to volunteer for several months to help at the first woman’s shelter in Los Angeles’ Skid Row in California. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.
A brochure cover in black and white with large orange section at the top titled: Wells Fargo Banker. Below is a family standing on stairs before an arched doorway.
Patawin St. Onge (upper right) used her time away from work as a teller in Oakland, California, to help resettle refugees from Indonesia in 1981. Her own background as a native of Thailand motivated her to help. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.
A woman wearing a long skirt and white blouse is seated in a chair before a TV. On the screen a man is petting a cat.
Melissa Hayes spent some of her Volunteer Leave in 1987 developing a training video for an animal therapy organization in San Francisco, California. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.
Three people in a parking garage. One man opens the side door to a van. A woman in a white suit and a man in shirt and tie stand beside a table with a cooler designed to carry donation organs.
Suzy Coxhead (center) benefited from a kidney transplant in her 20s. During a paid Volunteer Leave in 1987 she got an opportunity to encourage more organ donations at a hospital in San Francisco, California. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.
A woman on a telephone sorts through a large rolodex of cards.
Sandra Paulsen received a paid leave from Wells Fargo in 1980 to take calls and offer support at a suicide prevention call center in San Francisco, California. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.

Alyssa Bentz

Alyssa Bentz is a Corporate Historian for Wells Fargo.

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