Board of directors · Portland
Hon. Eleanor Hastings (Ret.)
Chair of the Board
“Independence isn't a slogan. It's a decision the board makes again every time someone offers to buy it.”
Served eighteen years on the Oregon Court of Appeals. Has chaired the board since 2020 and reads every page of every board packet.
- [email protected]
- Phone
- +1 (503) 555-0160
- Office
- Portland branch
- With Meridian since
- 2015
The story
Eleanor was raised in Astoria, where her mother ran the cannery office and her father fished for salmon until the fishery collapsed in the 1970s. She watched her parents navigate a bankruptcy with dignity, and decided that the law was where she could do the most good for people in that position.
After Lewis & Clark Law School she practiced commercial litigation for twelve years, then was appointed to the Oregon Court of Appeals in 2001, where she served until retiring in 2019. She wrote several opinions on lending practices and consumer protection that are still cited. She joined Meridian Trust's board in 2015 while still on the bench, with the court's approval, and became chair in 2020.
The board decision she is proudest of came in 2021, when the bank was approached about a merger that would have tripled its size and ended its independence. She led three months of deliberation, including open meetings with staff in all three branches, and the board declined. She has said the question that settled it was simple: 'Who would the loan officer be, afterward, for the family at the kitchen table?'
She lives in Portland's Irvington neighborhood with her husband David, a retired cardiologist. They have four grandchildren, two of whom she is teaching to play bridge, with limited patience on both sides.
Off duty
When not at the bank
Duplicate bridge
A Life Master since 2008, she plays Tuesday afternoons at the Portland Bridge Club and competes at the regional level twice a year. She describes bridge as 'litigation with a partner you have to be polite to.'
Rose gardening
Forty-two varieties in her Irvington garden, including a 'Peace' rose grown from a cutting her mother took in 1952. She judges at the Portland Rose Festival's show and is known to be exacting.
Astoria history
She is writing a history of the Columbia River canneries, drawing on her mother's office records. She is on chapter six and says it will be done 'when it's done.'
Ask me about
Education
- B.A. History, Reed College, 1976
- J.D., Lewis & Clark Law School, 1980
