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By Hillary Flynn
NEW YORK, Sept 7 (IFR) - Peter Burger, the head of corporatesyndicate at HSBC in New York, was surrounded by flames.
He had rushed inside a house that caught fire just beforedawn, a couple of days after Hurricane Sandy hit the northeastUnited States in October 2012.
A distraught man standing outside the burning home with hisdaughter cried out to Burger for help. His invalid wife wastrapped inside.
Burger, like scores of other bankers, lawyers and workersfrom financial services firms, spent weekends and evenings as avolunteer firefighter in the town where he lived.
For Burger, home was in Manhasset, Long Island, about 20miles from his long days on HSBC's syndicate desk in Manhattan.
As the house burned, Burger entered and fought his way up tothe bedroom. Flames gripped the wall and were creeping closer tooxygen tanks that were scattered around the floor and threatenedto explode.
Burger unhooked the woman from her life-support machines,put her over his back, and brought her down the stairs tosafety. He then turned around and started leading the fight tocontain the fire.
TRADITION
Burger is a lean, outgoing, olive-skinned man with a thickLong Island accent. He spends his days in HSBC's Fifth Avenueskyscraper as a managing director running a debt syndicate deskwhere multibillion dollar deals are executed by bankers wearingfinely pressed suits.
It is a stark contrast to his volunteer work, where Burgerspent 16 years, often pulling long night shifts covered in sootand debris.
He had not planned for either job.
"I (graduated as) a political science major at BostonCollege who had no idea what I wanted to do with my life,"Burger said. "I lucked out and got an interview with one of theguys from Goldman Sachs."
Burger was placed in Goldman's training program as a trader,and started working in corporate bonds. It kicked off a successful career trading corporate bonds in the secondarymarket.
After 10 years at Goldman, he moved to Credit Suisse asdirector of secondary corporate trading, then joined DeutscheBank as a managing director for its debt syndicate. He joinedHSBC as the head of its American debt syndicates in June 2010.
Burger got involved in firefighting while at Deutsche Bankin 2000.
"I wanted to not just write checks," Burger told IFR. "Iwanted to get involved in something physical, and there are onlya few things you can get involved in that people do that."
Volunteering at the local fire department did not come outof left field. Like many small and mid-sized towns, it was partof the culture around Manhasset, which has a population of8,000.
Burger recalled that when he was in high school playingfootball and lacrosse, many of his teammates' fathersvolunteered with the fire department. After he moved back toManhasset, several of his neighbors were volunteers.
He went to a meeting at the fire house and was struck by thecamaraderie among the volunteers. He just finished his last yearas the fire chief in Plandome, one of five villages that make upManhasset, where there are about 100 volunteers in thefirehouse.
The days after Hurricane Sandy showed the contrast betweenhis two roles. As the storm hit, Burger said Manhattan was"eerily quiet". But back in Plandome, the firehouse received 49calls in 33 minutes due to flooding, trees falling andelectrical fires.
BUSINESS HEAD
Burger reckons working as a fireman has made him a betterbanker.
He recalled one occasion when he was raising money for awell-known money manager and the deal went wrong.
"With that you definitely have the ability to hit the panicbutton or not," Burger said. "Not hitting the panic button isone thing I've applied from the fire group to my work."
"I am able to size up deals and clients more keenly now," hesaid, equating it to sizing up a fire.
His financial background also helped him improve his firedepartment's balance sheet.
"We had an annual golf fundraiser that brought in betweenUS$30,000 and $35,000. Now it brings in close to US$135,000 to$140,000," he said.
That prompted other fire departments wanting to cut costs toseek out Burger's guidance. In addition to improvingfundraising, Burger would tell them his department's secret wasgetting more life out of their equipment than most firehouses.
Burger, 53, said his firefighting has been an amazingexperience, but he decided to step down three months ago whenhis term as chief ended after years of pulling 20-plus hours aweek at the firehouse.
He recalls terrible fires, such as when a man tried to blowup his house while his wife and children were sleeping insideand ended up killing himself.
But there are good memories too: getting through his firstlive fire drill, the barbecue celebrating the end of hisprobation period, saving the invalid woman from a certain death,and the respect he won from his banking colleagues for his work. (Reporting by Hillary Flynn; Editing by Steve Slater and PaulKilby)
