Fund helps ex-WaMu workers hit hard by collapse

Washington Mutual's collapse cost Bruce Reilly not only his job, but also the company stock he'd accumulated over 16 years to pay for his three children to attend college.

"If I'd paid attention and hadn't been drinking the Kool-Aid, I would have sold the stock when it started to go down," says Reilly, a company writer who's since found another job. "But I was one of those who listened when the executives said, 'We'll get through this.' "

This year Reilly's daughter Robin was awarded a four-year, $20,000 scholarship to Western Washington University from an unusual source — a fund set up by former WaMu executives intent on helping the families of longtime employees who were hurt by the bank's demise.

The fund has raised more than $600,000 and allocated about 20 percent of the total. About $400,000 comes from an employee political-action committee that had no mission after the company went bust. The rest comes from former directors, employees and execs like Lou Pepper, 85, the CEO of WaMu before Kerry Killinger took the reins.

"It's been a terrible misfortune for the community and the country," says Pepper of WaMu's demise. "There's all these good people there that have been doing good things for a long period of time."

Noticeably absent from the list of donors? Kerry Killinger, who says he's helping former employees in other ways.