PHOTOGRAPHED AT Lafayette Park Hotel & Spa. (Photograph by Eric Millette.)

In addition to his work at the bank, Montana has a real estate investment company and gives motivational speeches. Having amassed substantial wealth through his 16-year career in the NFL and from endorsements and investments, Montana sees his own needs as similar to those of families and individuals he would like to recruit as customers. He also sees high-profile, professional athletes who are newly successful, but who lack any experience with wealth, as those who could benefit from his bank’s assistance.

His career in financial services began eight years ago, when former 49er teammates Harris Barton and Ronnie Lott convinced him to join a money management firm focusing on funds of funds in equities. Montana worked at HRJ Capital until 2005, often on real estate investments. As he explains to Worth contributor Dan Weil, his new focus is on family, financial services and the future.

Banking is a long way from the football field. When you were growing up, did you imagine working in the financial services industry?

No. I did think I would be somewhere in the business world, but I didn’t think it would be in financial services. In college, at Notre Dame, I thought about design. Even though I never smoked, I was interested in the design on cigarette packs and thought about what their selling points were. But design classes were available only during the fall, and with football practice, I couldn’t do it. So I majored in marketing. I always thought I would go back to school and maybe study business. I never thought I would last in the NFL that long.

What do you do as the vice chairman of Modern Bank?

I’m helping to bring in new business, especially on the West Coast. I do all kinds of marketing, which includes spending a lot of time in the media talking about what we’re doing. I bring some understanding of real estate investments, and have offered some guidance in that area. I’ve also advised on loans we’ve made to several sports franchises and a radio sports network.

Have you brought in any athletes as clients?

Not yet. Selling to athletes is difficult. It’s a longer cycle than with nonathletes. There are so many layers between us and athletes, and most of the people in between are not qualified to be there. To get people to change from something they are comfortable with, even if they are not happy, is hard.

Do successful celebrity athletes have different financial needs than regular affluent customers?

Many athletes have people with hands in their pockets who don’t want them to use professional financial advisors. That is the most difficult thing for them. Their brother’s uncle’s cousin has the best deal handling their money. Then you read in the paper that these athletes are having financial problems, and at that late point, they start looking for qualified help. That’s unfortunate. It’s sad that athletes today make so much money and often there is no one there to even help them preserve it, let alone grow it. The average career span in the NFL is four years. I try to get these guys to understand how important it is to do the right thing from the beginning. If you buy everyone in your family a house and car, which athletes tend to do, the money is gone quickly. I tell them that the group most devastating to your finances can be your family, especially at the beginning, because they’ve never had money around and think it’s endless.

How will you attract athletes to Modern Bank?

We’re trying to talk to players’ associations and get involved with athletes that way. It was harder at HRJ, because as athletes we did not have the same credibility [as career money managers], and guys had no idea about our industry and had never heard of the funds we were investing in. We hope that athletes will represent 5 to 10 percent of our client base here in three to five years.

How did you end up in your current position?

I met the bank’s founder and chairman, Bippy Siegal, when I was raising money for HRJ. We became friends and started talking about this. The idea came to him after I told him about my own personal banking needs—most of which were not being satisfied.

As an affluent individual, what has been your experience as a bank customer?

You expect a certain amount of service. If you don’t get it, it’s annoying. Before coming to Modern Bank, I had had my checking account at the same institutional bank since 1979. I didn’t do one ounce of other business with it. You’d think the bank would want to do as much business with me as possible, but it never offered me a loan. And on the investment side, I never saw anything from it worth putting my money into. The clincher was that my wife could not get a problem fixed in my daughter’s checking account involving a $30 transaction. They said there was no one there to deal with it. It should have been handled in one phone call.

What have been your own most pressing private banking needs as you have built and preserved your assets?

I think I’m a typical customer; I got involved because I wasn’t happy where I was. It has been a quick turnaround for me. My accountant wasn’t so sure I should do this, but as soon we started dealing with Modern Bank, he said, "This is better." I would never have given money to the asset-management side of another bank. Here we have already done that. And the nice thing is that it’s not just stocks, bonds and cash. It has many other noncorrelated assets like real estate, commodities, oil and gas. I also have a loan on a piece of property that my real estate company is involved with.

How have you dealt with estate planning and philanthropy?

On the estate planning side, we formed a trust. Most of our holdings go through there. For philanthropy, my wife, my daughters—ages 20 and 21—and I are involved with our foundation, the Four Rings Montana Family Foundation. The "four" stands for my four kids—I have sons who are 15 and 17—and my four Super Bowl rings.

The foundation gives to children’s charities. For example, we are helping with the Children’s Village in Santa Rosa [Calif.]. We just had a fundraiser for it. It’s a foster home for siblings. We will try to keep siblings together, so they will either graduate together or be adopted together. It’s important for my kids to carry the work on; that is why my wife is teaching the girls how to manage it. One has worked at the Children’s Village.

Is it difficult raising your children around money and celebrity?

They have had a sense from the beginning that we are affluent. One of the boys wanted to count money all the time. Even today, he will ask people, "Why did you buy that? That’s not worth it. I would never have paid that." We’ve tried to give our children a solid background in doing things the right way. We also let them know the money isn’t a faucet.

How have you been able to balance your work and your family life?

I missed my girls growing up because of football. I worked at HRJ because I wanted to be able to leave at 1:30 to see my boys’ football practice. One is a senior and one is a sophomore, and they will be gone soon.

What have you been able to take out of your experience in the NFL that applies to your work at Modern Bank?

Patience and perseverance. You go through rough times and ups and down, both in sports and in business. You have cycles and have to fight through that. Team sports especially teach lessons to kids early on in life. If a kid loses in a sport, the parents say it’s a tie. Kids aren’t stupid. They can count. In sports, you don’t always have a good day, but you always have to come back from a poor performance. The guy who ends up winning is usually the guy who can adapt, whether it’s in the marketplace or on the field, and move on to succeed.

What have been the most important lessons you have learned working in the financial services business?

It’s not always easy. You get going with an idea, and it’s fun. But you have to go out and perform and do it. From the beginning, you’re a startup and you have to prove yourself. That’s what we’re in the process of doing. People think that because you start a business with a good, new idea, it’s easy. But that’s not true.

Additional reporting by Matt Purdue.