10 Hoosier Banker September 2015 me during my sophomore year. “At first I wasn’t interested, because I had no intention of coming back home. I wanted to explore other places. But when I was a junior, my father died, and I felt I needed to stay close to home for my mother and four sisters. “So I accepted the bank’s offer, and the rest is history. It all happened quickly, and I have no regrets whatsoever.” DeMotte State Bank has been in operation for 98 years. What has made this bank successful? “First, we have a good relationship with our directors. I’ve been here 39 years, and I couldn’t imagine a better relationship between management and our board. Our directors have vision and have given us a lot of latitude. “When Senate Bill 1 passed in 1985, permitting expansion across county lines and interstate banking, everybody was writing off community banks. But our board had vision and embraced the idea that we would survive by growing. “So we started branching. First we bought a failed bank, then we started de novo branching. Now we have a network of 11 offices. “The other factor that has helped us is technology; it has kept us competitive. For the future, we’re exploring ways to deliver products and services that customers want. The challenge will be to do it costeffectively. But so far technology has kept us in the ballgame. “Customer loyalty is also important to the success of this bank. We’re in communities that we know. Our branches are run by local management ‒ people who know the community and have relationships. Our managers are invested in their communities. “Finally, we’ve always known who we are and what we are capable of doing. We don’t try to serve everybody and everything. We define what we can do, and then we go after it.” What do you enjoy most about banking? “What has and continues to be most rewarding in my career is being able to watch our communities grow. I was born and raised here in DeMotte, and I remember when there were no stoplights here. Now we’ve got two. “More important than watching our growth is being part of it. Our bank is at the dead center of everything when it comes to community. A recent example is that DeMotte just installed city water, to a large degree because this bank went out on a limb financially to make it happen. “We loaned the water utility, NORWEJ,* through a bond anticipation note of $825,000, hoping that the federal government would fund a water project here. Nobody else would bid the bonds, but DeMotte State Bank did. If the water project did not get funding, we would have been trying to recover $825,000. “It was a risk, but now this community has city water, after trying for about 40 years. “I also enjoy seeing people in our bank grow. I like watching their careers develop. “Finally, I appreciate that I’ve had an opportunity to watch my daughters grow up. Our board would afford me time to participate in the girls’ sports and music and everything else. Our directors knew that I would get my job done, staying until midnight or 1 a.m. or whatever it took. “I got to watch my girls grow up, and I will never forget that our board made that possible. They allowed me to be a dad.” Continued from page 9. Members of the DeMotte State Bank management team average 28 years of service with the bank. Shown are (left to right): Guy Carlson, executive vice president/Lowell manager; Donald Hall, EVP/chief financial officer; Don Goetz, president/chief executive officer; Maurice Wiseman, senior vice president/agricultural loan officer; Laura Chambers, SVP/information technology; and Daniel Ryan, EVP/loan administration. Not pictured is Kent Bierma, SVP/commercial loan officer. A packed curio cabinet in the office of Don Goetz is testament to his many interests. * Northwest Jasper Regional Water District
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