helm of the association, then passed the gavel to our newly elected 2025 Chair Tara Harrison from Virginia National Bank. After dinner, the guests indulged in casino games, with serious action at the craps, blackjack and roulette tables. The evening was capped off with dancing and 1920s-themed crafted cocktails to celebrate the tremendous service of VACB Chairman Witt. Tuesday’s breakfast featured a legislative update from Steve Yeakel and our newly appointed VACB President & CEO, Corey Connors. Steve and Corey were joined remotely by ICBA’s Paul Merski, and the trio provided attendees with a robust roundup of advocacy efforts at the state and national levels. Following breakfast, our second business session began with ICBA’s Rebeca Romero Rainey addressing the group. In her remarks, Rebeca discussed ICBA’s continued efforts to level the playing field for community banks and ICBA’s current advocacy priorities. She also urged everyone in the room to get involved in grassroots lobbying efforts by using ICBA’s “Be Heard” campaign. Rainey’s passion for community banking and community bankers was on full display during her session. Just in case the generative AI discussion on Monday didn’t put bankers on edge enough, the next session was sure to deliver. Dr. Kevin Streff presented on building a bank’s effective data privacy management program. He provided an overview of data privacy laws, management frameworks and briefly walked attendees through a framework to share how to start tracking this information. As more states pass data privacy laws, banks will be held responsible for keeping data private, much like the information security program banks implemented to protect data as required by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. In addition to being a subject matter expert on data privacy, Dr. Streff and his company can help banks build out their frameworks. Look for more information on this process from VACB in early 2025. 10 The CommunityBanker
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