First National Bank of Pennsylvania announced a major retooling of its corporate structure on Wednesday by divvying up bank branches into five geographic zones.

As part of this rejiggering, five executives within the bank have been promoted to president and chief executive officer for each of the markets. All five executives will report to Gary Roberts, the bank's senior executive vice president, who will continue to be based at the bank's Hermitage headquarters. Roberts will continue reporting to Steven Gurgovits, president and chief executive officer of the bank, whose office also will remain in Hermitage.

First National's name will remain at all of its offices.

Dividing up branches into geographic zones is a common practice for banks that have added offices over a large territory. That happened to First National after it added 82 branches in February when its holding company, Naples, Fla.-based FNB Corp., bought Promistar Financial Corp. in Johnstown. Promistar owned Promistar Bank. Promistar's offices were merged into First National's, and the bank now has 130 offices with assets of more than $4.3 billion. About 120 of the branches are in western Pennsylvania, with the remainder in eastern Ohio.

"It's hard when you grow to a bank of our size and maintain a community bank flavor,'' said Clay W. Cone, vice president of corporate communications for FNB. "This will certainly help maintain that.''

A concept behind the move is to get the five executives out into their respective regions to act as ambassadors within those communities, Cone said.

"These presidents and CEOs will have complete authority over the decisions made in their branches,'' he said.

FNB had presidents that served separate markets at its Florida banks for a long time, and that proved to be a successful formula, Cone said.

The five geographic locations and the newly appointed executives are:

   » Central Region, serving the greater Mercer County and Youngstown area. It will be headed by Peter J. Asimakopoulos. The market will have 20 offices with $720 million in deposits. Asimakopoulos most recently was senior vice president of commercial banking for First National; prior to that he was vice president and senior lender. He also served with Metropolitan National Bank

   » North Region, serving the greater Erie area. It will be headed by Dan Holquist. The market will have 25 branches with $713 million in deposits. Holquist most recently served as senior vice president, retail banking manager, for First National in Erie. Before that, he served in a variety of retail banking positions with PNC Bank and First Federal Savings & Loan Association, Erie.

   » Southcentral Region, serving the greater Beaver County area. It will be headed by Bob Rimbey. The market will have 17 branches with $289 million in deposits. Rimbey most recently was executive vice president of operations for First National; prior to that, he was president and chief executive officer of FNB's Reeves Bank in Beaver. He also held positions with Citizens National Bank, Evans City, and National Bank of Beaver County, Monaca.

   » South Region, serving the Pittsburgh area. It will be headed by Paul Puleo. The market will have 28 branches with $637 million in deposits. Puleo most recently was senior vice president, retail banking manager, for First National. Prior to that, he was a vice president and regional manager for the bank in Lawrence County and served in a variety of other positions with the bank.

   » East Region, serving the greater Johnstown area. It will be headed by Bill McKinney. The market will have 40 branches with $917 million in deposits. McKinney most recently was senior vice president, retail banking manager, for First National. Before that, he was executive vice president, retail banking manager, for Promistar and served in a variety of other managing positions with Promistar and its predecessor, Johnstown Bank and Trust Co.