Ihor Alexander Shust, 87, former CoreStates senior vice president and Ukrainian community leader
Mr. Shust came to Philadelphia from Ukraine as an adolescent. He studied finance and banking at the University of Pennsylvania and became an international specialist in credit and lending.
Ihor Alexander Shust, 87, of Jenkintown, a former CoreStates Bank senior vice president and a volunteer leader in the area’s Ukrainian community, died Wednesday, Nov. 20, of heart failure at his home.
Born in what is now Ukraine in 1932, Mr. Shust fled as the Soviet army advanced in 1944. He wound up in a displaced persons camp in Germany, where he finished high school. He came to the United States in 1949 and settled in Nicetown.
Mr. Shust earned a bachelor of science degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He completed coursework at the graduate level on credit and financial management through the Harvard School of Business. He then served in the Army and was stationed in Germany from 1955 to 1957.
Starting in the late 1950s, Mr. Shust rose through the ranks in local banking, first at Philadelphia National Bank (PNB). In 1983, PNB became CoreStates, which merged with Wells Fargo in 2008.
He specialized in credit and lending from a corner office in the PNB building at Broad and Chestnut Streets.
As senior credit officer, Mr. Shust strengthened the credit analysis process, improved monitoring of problem loans, and guided loan managers and lenders in renegotiating collateral and credit terms during several economic downturns, his resumé said.
“He was a very likable person, always making everyone feel good in his company,” said daughter Christine Fylypovych.
“He was dependable and eternally optimistic,” said his son, Mark, an optometrist. “He felt there was always a resolution to whatever situation developed.”
He accepted international assignments to expand the commercial banking business in Latin America. He also developed credit policy and risk controls for foreign banks in Central and South America. That led to several exports of U S. commodities to Asian countries, his family said.
Mr. Shust was one of the first U.S. bankers to visit the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, said Andrew Fylypovych, Mr. Shust’s son-in-law. He went there with Frederick Heldring of Wayne, who later became chairman and CEO of PNB.
“I recall Ihor showing me a photo of them and Nikita Khrushchev,” then the Soviet leader, Andrew Fylypovych said in an email.
After retiring from CoreStates in 1996, Mr. Shust consulted for banks in the U.S. and Europe. He also developed a risk-management training program for a German bank that was spun off and sold to bankers in Asia and Eastern Europe.
In 1956, he married Daria Pushkar Shust, a teacher of Ukrainian descent who was born in Poland. They met at a social club in Philadelphia. The couple settled in Huntingdon Valley to raise their three children. She died in 2012.
Aside from his work, Mr. Shust was a volunteer leader in the Ukrainian community. He served on the board of directors for the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center in Jenkintown, was a trustee for Manor College in Jenkintown, and was on the board of the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation.
He chaired the Philadelphia Committee of the Friends of the Ukrainian Catholic University and founded the Patriarchal Fund of the St. Sophia Society, a religious organization of Ukrainian Catholics. He also volunteered as a banking representative for the International Visitors Council of Philadelphia.
When not working, he enjoyed tennis and travel. “He wanted to show the grandkids the world,” his family said.
In addition to his son and daughter, he is survived by another daughter, Tanya Temnycky; six grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and a brother.
A viewing at 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 23. will be followed by a Requiem Liturgy at noon at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 830 N. Franklin St. Burial is in St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery, Elkins Park.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, through the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation, 2247 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60622.