in Washington. Also in 1992, Key acquired Home Federal Savings of Fort Collins, its first move into Colorado. Key soon amassed nearly 700 banking offices. The result was two separate banking networks united under a single corporate umbrella. However, this strategy actually worked well for Key. Not only was it insulated from regional economic downturns, but it avoided bad loans by lending primarily to customers in the areas it served. When Key acquired a bank, it retained most of the bank's personnel. Riley argued that a bank that entered new territory and "start(ed) shuffling people around" could not brand itself as a community bank. By 1993, the rural strategy with local management and minimal technology made Key a very profitable bank. However, it was getting tougher for Riley and CFO William Dougherty to maintain their 15% return on equity target and investors were cooling on Key stock after many high growth years. Key began testing a Vision 2001 computer system, which sped up and enhanced the loan process through faster credit scoring, loan servicing and collection capabilities. Society National Bank and KeyBank merger (1994) Although Gillespie had built Society into a regional powerhouse in the Midwest, he wanted to vault the bank into the big leagues. He concluded Key, a bank with similar ambitions, was a suitable partner. Society and Key held talks in 1990 at Gillespie's prompting, but Riley decided to stay the course of smaller, more lucrative acquisitions with obvious synergies. Yet, news reports swirled that a possible merger was in the works in the fall of 1993. Key was the 29th largest U.S. bank with $26 billion in assets, while Society was the 25th largest with $32 billion in assets. Both needed a merger to improve their prospects. For its part, Key needed a succession plan due to the lack of an obvious successor to the 62-year-old Riley. In one week in June 1993, the bench had become barren – Chief Banking Officer James Waterston, hired the year before, quit and publicly stated that he was frustrated with the pace of achieving his goal of running a large bank. The head of KeyBank of Washington, Hans Harjo, was pushed out over an apparent dispute to move its headquarters from Seattle to Tacoma. It also became clear that Key had to undertake a technology infrastructure upgrade to connect its far-flung offices. Meanwhile, Society was in search of higher