Independent Banker - January 2024 - 46

them, rather than open a branch
VeraBank's Georgetown,
Texas, branch employees
(from left): Kevin Kelly,
market president; Amber
Cooksey, mortgage lender;
Jonathan Voight, regional
manager; Monie Ivory,
branch manager; Zeth
Zentiek, portfolio manager
and fi nd people.
" We make sure we have people
who have relationships in the
community, " Newgard says. " They
attract their friends and their own
team. We empower that. "
Newgard jokingly refers to this
as the " fi ve-gallon bucket card
table " approach. At the Nampa
branch, the bank put a team in the
conference room of the Chamber
of Commerce building for a year
while negotiating a lease for another
space. The branch's business took
off in its decidedly temporary
surroundings.
early 2022, VeraBank converted to Q2
for all of its online and commercial
banking. The bank also converted
all its ATMs to interactive teller
machines (ITMs) and rebuilt its
website from scratch.
" I want our customers to be able to
walk in the bank and do anything they
want to, " Tidwell says. " I also want
them to be able to sit in their pajamas
in their recliner and do anything
they want. Whatever it is, customers
need to be able to do it the way that's
easiest for them. That's how you
compete with the big guys. "
Valley-experienced 4.2% growth
in the span of a year. Canyon
County, where Nampa is located,
and two nearby counties, Ada and
Owyhee, have seen a combined
increase of 46,000 in population
since 2020.
Jeff Newgard, chairman,
president and CEO of Bank of
Idaho, says the area's outdoorsy
lifestyle, good business conditions
and an open, collaborative
business community are a big part
of the region's appeal.
The community bank,
headquartered in Idaho Falls,
Idaho, in the east of the state, has
grown right along with its market.
It zoomed from $265 million
in 2015 to just over $1 billion
in 2023.
Saying " hello " to
Nampa, Idaho
Nampa, Idaho-a suburb of Boise
and part of the state's famed Treasure
Bank of Idaho entered the
Treasure Valley area in 2019,
starting the downtown Boise
branch with a simple but
unconventional strategy: Hire
people and open a branch around
Newgard has found that this
unusual approach consistently
works for the bank. " We'll be
painting and doing construction
around the team as they're bringing
in customers. It's effi cient, " he
says. " We're not spending a lot of
money to build something that isn't
in operation yet. We get up and
running fi rst and grow the facilities
around that. It doesn't matter if
your branch has a fi ve-gallon card
table. Customers work with them
and trust them. They don't care if
the wood's fancy or not. "
SBA dynamo
In 2022, Bank of Idaho was
ranked as the #1 Small Business
Administration (SBA) lender in
Idaho-a stunning achievement
given that the community bank had
just entered that market two years
earlier. The PPP was the catalyst,
as the bank found the program to
be a great fi t. Subsequently, Bank of
Idaho created an SBA department
and brought on experienced staff .
" We've grown that program
exponentially, " Newgard reports.
" It's been a popular product. Even
with interest rates high, there's still
some demand. "
Recognizing the risks of
rocket-like growth, Bank of
46 /// ICBA Independent Banker // January 2024
/
Photo: Dennis Burnett
Independent Banker - January 2024

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