Just reading the sign at the entrance to the B.C. Financial Institutions Commission's office in Surrey can be an exhausting exercise.

"Financial Institutions Commission, Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Superintendent of Pensions, Superintendent of Real Estate, Registrar of Mortgage Brokers, Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corporation, Financial Services Commission."

Even more exhausting to contemplate is the fact that one person is responsible for all these functions.

Her name is Carolyn Rogers. She was appointed CEO of the B.C. Financial Institutions -and automatically assumed all these other positions -last June after her predecessor, Alan Clark, suddenly "retired" under circumstances that were never fully (or even partly) explained.

That was the one caveat that Rogers issued before she agreed to meet for this introductory profile: No questions about Clark's departure, or her subsequent removal of Colin Parcher, FICOM's executive director of investigative services, and two other FICOM employees.

However it happened, Rogers, just 41 years old, presents a sharp contrast to the previous regime, which several employees had earlier described to me as "the old boys' club."

Whereas Clark slowly climbed the ladder from cop to investigator to administrator, Rogers has catapulted herself into the big chair with startling speed.

Less than three years ago, she was CEO of Hydroxyl Systems Inc., a Victoria-based waste water treatment company that she helped shepherd out of creditor protection and turn into a viable business. (In 2007, Business in Vancouver named her one of its "Forty under Forty" business luminaries.)

Alas, the economy turned, customers stretched their payables and delayed projects, while lenders reduced their credit lines.

A working capital crisis ensued, and by the end of 2008, the company was back in creditor protection and Rogers was gone.

This proved a minor interruption for Rogers, a Winnipeg native who earned her undergraduate degree from Brandon University and her MBA from Queen's University, and is also a certified management accountant.

Headhunters came knocking, and by April 2009, she was installed as an assistant deputy minister at the B.C. Public Service Agency, which provides human resources services to government ministries and agencies.

She was in the job for barely a year when finance ministry officials decided that FICOM was due for regime change.

Rogers was asked to take over, and she did.

FICOM has about 100 employees and an annual budget of $11.5 million, which isn't huge, but it has very broad responsibilities. In all, it administers 10 provincial statutes.

Rogers says the commission's biggest responsibility is regulating B.C.'s credit union system, which has assets of more than $45 billion, more than any other province outside Quebec.

Just more than one-third of FICOM's 100 employees work in this area, which includes administering the Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corp., which ensures the solvency of B.C. credit unions and administers the system-wide insurance fund. (The B.C. government ultimately guarantees all credit union deposits.)

The next most important responsibility is regulating provincially registered pension plans.

These consist of about 500 definedbenefit plans, such as the University of British Columbia plan, and about 200 other plans.

All told, these plans have about $80 billion of assets under administration. FICOM's job -to keep them solvent -has been particularly challenging in recent times due to volatile markets and actuarial shortfalls.

Regulation of mortgage brokers has also been vexing in past years.

Several syndicated mortgages, most notably those sold by Eron Mortgage Corp., blew up, causing massive investor losses.

Since then, the B.C. Securities Commission has deemed these sorts of investments to be securities, which brings them under its umbrella. There is also pending legislation that will require anybody who sells syndicated mortgages to be registered with both the BCSC and FICOM.

There is no self-regulatory organization for mortgage brokers, so FICOM looks after licensing and disciplining them. But two other major areas of FICOM responsibility, real estate and insurance, have their own SROs: the Real Estate Council of B.C. and the Insurance Council of B.C. They look after consumer complaints and disciplinary matters, but any unlicensed real estate or insurance activity is FICOM's responsibility.

One might assume that, given these extensive responsibilities, Rogers would be commanding a very large salary, but it is only $170,000 per year. That's mainly because FICOM is a government commission and its employees are public-sector employees, not like the B.C. Securities Commission, which is a government agency and can set its own compensation levels.

Rogers and her husband, Matt -who works as a project management consultant -do not have any children, but they maintain two homes, an apartment in downtown Vancouver, and a 1950s-era house in Victoria, which Rogers says has evolved into a major renovation project.

I found Rogers to be pleasant and articulate, and she appeared to have a good understanding of her very large portfolio of responsibilities. With major changes in her investigations department, I would expect FICOM's presence on the street and in boardrooms to heighten over time.

dbaines@vancovuersun.com