When Steve Worrell, President and CEO of Vintage Bank Kansas, and majority owner Wink Hartman purchased The State Bank of Leon in 2011, they acquired more than a financial institution. They bought into a legacy dating back to 1902, rooted in a town of just 657 residents where everyone knows your name. What started as a single branch with $9.5 million in assets and five employees has grown into a 10-community network with $260 million in assets and 70 employees. The transformation required a clear vision for what community banking could be in an era of consolidation. “We’re very community bank oriented,” Worrell explains. “All three of us in this room grew up in small communities in Kansas. Our approach has been looking at towns, small towns that have community banks that don’t have family CCESS ON SMALL-TOWN IC VISION AS, THIS CENTURY-OLD HARACTER-BASED LENDING 114 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 12, ISSUE 12
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