For those of you “whatever happened to” story fans, here’s a flash from the past: Former Dallas mayor Steve Bartlett just was profiled in a lengthy New York Times story talking about his impact on banking legislation as head of the Financial Services Roundtable.

Yeah, I had never heard of the group, either, but they must be doing OK: Bartlett is paid $2 million a year, according to the NYT story. That would have to put Bartlett among our most successful former mayors, at least in terms of annual pay days.

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I’m sure once former mayor Ron Kirk steps down from his role in President Obama’s administration, he’ll be beating back lots of big-dollar job offers, too. And maybe that’s why former mayor Tom Leppert is so eager to get into politics while Bartlett and, likely, Kirk have done their time and decided to cash in with the private sector — Leppert’s career has been the opposite of theirs, since he already cashed in before venturing into politics.