As the newly elected President of MIB, I want to focus my first communication on introducing myself, talking a little bit about my background, and then discussing what I would like to see the newest MIB officers, directors, and members spend time focusing on in the next couple of years.

First, I am a native of Missoula and have lived in Western Montana my entire life enjoying the numerous outdoor activities that living in Montana provides. I was lucky enough to marry my college sweetheart Beth shortly after
graduation and she has been an amazing partner in our life’s journey together, the most fulfilling of which has been raising our two boys Ben and Garrett to be amazing young men.

I am currently the Chief Credit Officer at Farmers State Bank where I began my banking career in 1998. I graduated from the University of Montana in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and an emphasis in Finance. My first role was credit analyst which naturally progressed into consumer and commercial lending. During the Great Recession, I transitioned back into the credit side of the bank where I focused on conducting loan reviews and working with the Bank’s customers to survive the turmoil. Since then, I have continued working on the credit side of the Bank in several roles. I am a strong supporter of my local community and have dedicated numerous volunteer hours over the years to local nonprofit organizations. Through this work as both a community banker and volunteer, I have witnessed the vital role community banks play in the health of small businesses and their communities.

I am actively involved in ICBA where I am a current member of the Bank Operations and Payments Committee as well as a member of a subcommittee focused on crypto and digital currencies, and the learning curve is extremely steep.

After college, the absolute last thing I wanted to become was a banker. That mindset had to do with several things that I won’t dive into other than to say my family had limited resources and didn’t have great credit experiences. The banking
classes that I took in college didn’t exactly help my mindset either, as I remember them being incredibly complicated and focusing more on corporate banking topics. I don’t remember any exposure to the inner-workings of a community bank, or that there was any difference between large corporate banks and small community banks. Luckily, through a series of fortunate events put into place by my wife Beth (I told you she was amazing!) I fell into a job at Farmers State Bank, and I haven’t regretted the decision for a second. As I continue to grow and develop as a community banker, I wonder what I can do to help shift the mindset that I had growing up. What can we do as an industry to help develop the younger generation into future community bankers?

This leads me to what I would like to see not only the officers and directors of MIB focus on but the entire membership of MIB as well during my tenure as President. We must increase the general public’s knowledge of what community
banking is and why it is so vital to so many towns and cities across our state and nation. Over the past few years, MIB has taken great strides toward this vision with the creation of the community banking program at Montana State University, its integrated internship program, and more recently the statewide ‘Community Bank vs. Big Bank’ digital marketing campaign to name a few. While this is a great start there is a lot more that can be done by all stakeholders.

We as a board have had many discussions on what else can be done and while we have some great ideas in the works, I know there are many others out there that can provide some great ideas as well. I can be reached at 406-273-4565
or by email at tims@farmersebank.com and I welcome any ideas or discussions from you to help us in this endeavor.