BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Speaking to a crowd of about 200 commercial bankers inside the historic Beverly Hilton, Jake Olson was on a roll. He had given hundreds of these types of speeches over the past decade, and it showed: The audience was engaged and his jokes landed as he walked the crowd through the story of how he lost his eyesight to cancer at age 12 and still managed to join the USC football team as a long-snapper.
Then the banging began. Whack, whack, whack.
It was loud and, at first, there was an uneasiness in the room.