Business View Magazine | November 2020

111 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2020 CUSB BANK Five generations of bankers T he Cresco Union Savings Bank (CUSB), based in northeast Iowa, was established in 1888 by Robert Thomson, great- grandfather of J. Scott Thomson, the bank’s current President and the fourth generation of the family to head the 132-year old institution. “My great-grandfather came here from Scotland in the 1870s,” Thomson recounts. “He started out on the east coast and ended up in Pennsylvania where he worked making ketchup for the H.G. Heinz Co. As the story goes, he asked Mr. Heinz if there was any chance he could buy into the company. He was told ‘No’ because there were a number of succession opportunities within Heinz’s own family. “So, he left there and started a mercantile store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was here that he learned to make “pocket loans” to people in need of money so they could buy on credit. He later sold the mercantile company and moved to southwest Wisconsin where he worked on a farm and also made loans to people on a AT A GLANCE CUSB BANK WHAT: A family-owned community bank WHERE: Cresco, Iowa WEBSITE: www.cusb.com