6 Hoosier Banker October 2015 FEATURE President’s Ponderings S. Joe DeHaven, President & Chief Executive Officer, Indiana Bankers Association Last May my daughter qualified for and was confirmed as a minister of the United Methodist Church. Over the next three years, she will be working toward ordination as a deacon, focusing on her faithbased counseling practice, without affiliation to a particular church. Recently, however, she was asked to deliver the sermon at the church that she and her family have been attending for the past 15 years or so. It really struck me when she was introduced as the Reverend Jill Buckler, as I had never heard my daughter introduced that way. Her message focused on the importance of the church family, and how these family members become interwoven in support of each other. As an analogy, she compared this interconnectedness to the coastal redwoods of Muir Woods, just outside of San Francisco. Those magnificent trees can grow up to 350 feet tall, but their roots only extend about 10 feet deep. The reason this shallow root system can support such massive trees is that the roots of the individual trees intertwine to support each other. Indeed, a coastal redwood cannot live in isolation, as it relies on the intertwining of its roots with the roots of others in order to survive … much as members of a church family support each other and rely on each other. I was proud of my daughter’s sermon and her beautiful delivery of it. As I sat listening to her wisdom, I could not help thinking that the banking system is similar to, yet very different from, those coastal redwoods. The similarity is in the interconnectedness of the root system of banking. We are reliant on each other and support each other in many common issues. The payment system is a collective system. The lending function, through loan participations, is a collective system. Data processing is done collectively by a dozen or so companies, which provide the needed systems. The ATM system requires cooperation among all banks. The bank trade associations, such as the Indiana Bankers Association, came into being through the collective efforts of banks. Much banker training is delivered through these associations, as well as government relations outreach. In other words, banks and bankers band together to work for common causes that strengthen all, much like the coastal redwoods and strong church families. However, we are different from the coastal redwoods and church families, because our roots run profoundly deep within individual communities. While we are interconnected to our communities, banks tend to be the cornerstone institutions, without which economic development would not occur. In many communities, the bank and bankers are the leaders of efforts to promote civic, cultural and arts lifestyles. The depth of bank roots in community after community cannot be questioned. I have witnessed this dichotomy in the banking business for over four decades. It is somewhat baffling that we can band together to fight off common threats one day, yet go out and compete head-to-head with each other the next day. I know that some level of this occurs in every industry, but I have not witnessed it to the same level in other businesses as I have in banking. This is what I find so interesting about the work that I do. It is an honor to serve the banking professionals who are willing to join hands and share everything with each other to improve their respective communities, while at the same time competing for the same customers. It is an honor to represent these men and women of high integrity, who consistently place the interests of community and staff above all else. I am proud of my daughter and thankful that she has found her calling in life. Even though her calling and mine appear to be much different, there are many similarities. I hope she will remember the lesson she taught so well about the coastal redwoods and will continue to apply it to her church family. And may she be as blessed in her calling as I have been in mine! Lure in your prospects through strategic advertising in Hoosier Banker magazine, the flagship publication of the Indiana Bankers Association. Hoosier Banker is distributed to more than 6,500 subscribers monthly, with a pass-along readership exceeding 15,000. Its subscriber base includes all banks and thrifts headquartered in Indiana, along with non-Indiana banks that have a presence in Indiana. They won’t bite without the bait ... For details, contact Rod Lasley at 317-387-9380, rlasley@indianabankers.org.
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