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New Bank Being Formed in Virginia: A new financial institution, First Presidents Bank Corp., is now being organized in Fairfax, Va.

First Presidents, a commercial bank expected to open for business in the fall, will focus on small and mid-sized businesses, high-tech companies and government contractors; the CEO is John Maxwell.

On July 21, First Presidents named the following people to its board of directors: Terry Collins, president of Argon Engineering Associates; Alvin Nashman, who headed the systems group of Computer Sciences Corp. for 27 years before retiring in 1992; and Helen Newman, senior vice president of government operations for Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.

Comeback Kids: The young guys from push technology firm Freeloader Inc., which was bought in 1996 and then folded recently by its parent firm, have started a new venture.

The company, called The Adrenaline Group, is a software development consulting firm located in Manassas, Va.

One of Adrenaline's first contracts is with CrossMedia Corp., Reston, Va., which lets mobile e-mail users retrieve messages from telephones. CrossMedia's product will be available in the first quarter of 1998. The Adrenaline Group will design CrossMedia's World Wide Web services for customers and registration database.

Hong Kong Bound: Ben Vandegrift, a partner in the Washington office of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, plans to relocate Sept. 1 to Hong Kong, where Pillsbury has offices in the Asia Pacific Finance Tower in Citibank Plaza.

Strange Bedfellows: Bell Atlantic has signed a resale and local interconnection agreement in Washington with the local affiliate of MCI Communications Corp.

MCI signed similar deals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia last month. These arrangements let MCI offer local service in Washington by reselling Bell Atlantic's service. The discounted rate that MCI will pay is established by the D.C. Public Service Commission.

However, Bell Atlantic won't be able to offer long distance service in the area where it currently sells local service until the Federal Communications Commission says the Baby Bell has met the requirements of the Telecommunications Act passed last February.

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