Lynne Pierson Doti

Lynne Pierson Doti was a Professor of Economics at Chapman University for 45 years. She is the author of Banking in an Unregulated Environment: California 1878 - 1905 and Financing California Real Estate: Spanish Missions to Subprime mortgages. With co-author Larry Schweikart she wrote the books California Bankers, Banking in the American West and American Entrepreneur. She has also written about 25 articles on banking, using history as a laboratory to test theories of branching, structure and regulation and served as the editor of Essays in Economic and Business History, an academic journal. The Economic and Business History Society elected her President twice.

Involvement in community issues included serving as chair of the Orange City Budget Committee and as a finance commissioner for the city of Anaheim. She is now Vice Chair of the Investment Advisory Committee for Villa Park. In 2006 she helped organize Plaza Bank, Irvine, and served on its board of directors. Earlier, she was a director of Eldorado Bank. She became interested in the role of entrepreneurs as director of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship where she met a number of the successful business owners in Orange County, California. She serves on two corporate boards.