Herring Bank’s expansion plans in Colorado go beyond the four branches it acquired from regulators Friday.
“We are interested in adding branches if we have local management,” said Campbell Burgess, Herring’s president and chief executive.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over and then sold Colorado National Bank of Colorado Springs to Amarillo-based Herring last week.
One of the first things Herring did was bring back Jim Wilson, who headed Colorado National Bank until 2006, when he had a falling out with Team Financial, the Kansas holding company that acquired the bank in 2001.
Wilson’s return and the retention of all but one of the bank’s employees helped reassure many customers, only four of whom pulled their deposits, Burgess said.
“Once people learned that Jim was back in charge, that we want local management, they have been very satisfied,” Burgess said.
Burgess is the great-great grandson of C.T. Herring, who founded the privately owned bank back in 1899.
To survive the Great Depression, the family posted the deed to its ranch on the wall to reassure jittery customers it would back up their bank deposits.
It also side-stepped the excesses that sank many Texas and Colorado institutions in the late 1980s, when oil prices headed south.
“I think our secret is lending to people we personally know and who personally know us. If we can do that consistently, we will persevere,” he said.
The Colorado purchase is the first for the bank outside of Texas. Herring plans to rebrand its Colorado branches in the near future.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
