Pub. 4 2014-2015 Issue 5

6 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G C O L O R A D A N S R E A L I Z E D R E A M S In mid-January, Jeff Schmitz, CBA chairman and Mark Bower, CBA chairman-elect and I traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the biennial Freshmen Fly-In, with more than 70 other bankers and state association representatives from across the country. The trip was part of an ongoing effort to lay the foundation for solid and lasting relationships with 71 new Members of Congress, and to educate themabout pressing issues for the banking industry. Just as “relationship banking” is important to your bank’s success, building solid and lasting interactions with public officials is critical. You have more comfort lending to someone you know; public officials also rely more on people they know and trust. There, we met with freshman legislators Senator Cory Gard- ner and Representative Ken Buck, as well as House Financial Services Committee members Ed Perlmutter and Scott Tipton, to review banking issues they will be considering during the next Congress and explain our positions. I also attended a small meeting with Jeb Hensarling, who serves as chair of the HFSC, to discuss regulatory relief for the industry. We believe we have a good shot of achieving our goal of se- curing some regulatory relief for banks in the coming session. The ABA/Alliance Regulatory Relief Task Force, led by CBA, worked to gain support last year of a bill to make portfolio loans inherently compliant with QM and ATR regulations. While the bill was unable to see passage then, it will be reintroduced soon. We got closer than we thought we would, and we believe it has strong prospects this year. We will have to be measured in our approach, however, as President Obama in his State of the Union address in January, threated to veto any changes to the Dodd-Frank Act. Also during our visit, we distributed to federal lawmakers a 12-page booklet CBA created, chock-full of information about the industry in Colorado and issues of import the industry faces here, including overregulation, the unfair advantage credit unions en- joy, and the unwarranted expansion of the Farm Credit System. With the addition of Senator Cory Gardner and Representa- tive Ken Buck (who was named president of the freshman class of U.S. House members) to Colorado’s delegation, along with the addition of Scott Tipton to the House Financial Services Committee to sit alongside Rep. Perlmutter, we believe we have some true friends of the industry who understand our concerns and will advocate for us at our nation’s capital. We had a chance to celebrate some of that friendship during a small luncheon CBA hosted for contributors to Senator Cory Gardner’s campaign via the Friends of Traditional Banking, Freshman Fly-In Good Opportunity for Forming Congressional Relationships A Word From CBA...