Independent Banker - August 2022 - 51

tomb. In Pittsburgh, Pa., the steel
industry was booming, and the
founders of the Tunnel Building
and Loan company wanted to help
mill workers save money for the
future and buy their own homes.
Without a permanent base of its
own, the new bank hopscotched
between local premises-including
a department store, barber shop,
hotel and offi ce of the U.S. Bureau
of Mines-and the bank's fi rst
employee, Hobart Moore, collected
deposits in a shopping bag. The
bankers occasionally found
themselves locked out, and on one
such day, legend has it, they used a
wooden plank and an orange crate
as a makeshift bank counter.
Today, what is now
$850 million-asset Brentwood
Bank has fi ve branches of its own,
plus a mobile unit that travels
to senior communities. The
ability to adapt is in its DNA and
has allowed the bank to reach
its centennial.
President and CEO Thomas
Bailey joined the bank in 1985, when the steel industry in
the Pittsburgh area was dying. Between 1979 and 1987, the
region lost 133,000 manufacturing jobs, and he remembers
the community bank working with its customers to get
them through what he describes a " tremendous upheaval. "
During the same period, infl ation ran rampant. " At one
time, interest rates on deposits were higher than interest
rates on loans, " he recalls, " and that's a recipe for disaster,
because you make money on your loans, and you fund your
loans with your deposits. So, there was a point in time that
the bank was struggling because it wasn't making money. "
That same uncertainty was, he says, a feature of the early
pandemic. " But I'd say the bright spot was the employees
stepping up and using some of that ingenuity that we heard
about in our early history, such as meeting customers
Brentwood Bank employees help organize supplies and clean up outdoor areas at the
Women's Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh.
out in the parking lot to do a loan, " Bailey says. " We had
one offi ce that didn't have a drive-thru, but they opened
the window so that they could do [transactions] through
the window. "
It's all about services
" We must have been doing an outstanding job,
because no competitors came into town until
branch banking laws changed, probably in the midsixties.
The bank prospered, and so did our town. "
JOHN MANN, CHELSEA STATE BANK
Bailey believes a combination of high-touch, high-tech
service has served Brentwood Bank well. Back in the
1970s, for example, the community bank partnered
with technology company NCR to bring in an in-house
community banking computer system, attracting visits
from curious bankers as far afi eld as Texas. " We're
constantly chasing the technology. We'll never be a leader
in it, but we hope to be a fast follower! " he laughs.
This year, the community bank celebrated its centenary
with branch events and by marching in the Brentwood
Fourth of July Parade, but
its biggest focus will be on
celebrating employees and their
families the way the Pittsburgh
community knows best: at a
Pirates game.
Roshan McArthur is a writer
in California.
independentbanker.org Q 51
http://www.independentbanker.org
Independent Banker - August 2022

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