VENTURA COUNTY PEOPLE

* Verne Merrill has been hired as an outside sales representative with Allcable Inc. of Oxnard. He previously worked in sales for Lessing Associates.

* Larry A. Winter of Westlake Village has earned membership in Lutheran Brotherhood’s 1998 Top Club. He is affiliated with Lutheran Brotherhood’s Southern California Agency in Woodland Hills.

Membership in Top Club, the agency’s most prestigious sales honor, is based on insurance and investment product sales to Lutherans.

* Senior Vice President Karen Racusin has been named Bank of America’s small business banking area executive. She will responsible for sales and relationship management in west Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Before the promotion, Racusin was a manager in the bank’s training division.

* Eric Swanson of Camarillo has successfully completed training to become a certified senior advisor. The designation by the Society of Certified Senior Advisors is given to those who pass an exam at the end of the course, which deals with key issues involving senior citizens.

* Bank of Ventura has named three to administrative positions.

Fred Antrim has joined the bank as vice president and chief financial officer. Laura A. Berglund has been named a vice president and manager of the mortgage banking department. Linda M. Faris has been named assistant vice president and assistant manager of the bank’s mortgage department.

Bank of Ventura is at 5808 Telephone Road.

* Tony Baird has been hired by the law firm of Hiepler & Hiepler in Oxnard. Baird, a 1997 graduate of Pepperdine University School of Law, is fluent in Spanish.

He will handle health-care litigation and personal injury matters.