Doing the Right Thing

It was a particularly gratifying moment for new ABA Chairman Dan Blanton. The scene: A recent business development meeting at Georgia Bank & Trust, a $1.8 billion community bank based in Augusta, Ga. One of the bank's senior commercial lenders, reporting on the local economic environment, noted that loan officers were going to have a difficult time reaching their production goals for the year. At that point, a relatively new director on the bank's board asked a prudent question. What, the director asked, prevents a loan officer from originating lesser-quality loans to just meet the goals? It was the reaction of the bank's staff that impressed Blanton, who had to hold himself in reserve in responding to the question. That's because of the strong culture of business ethics at the bank, which comes from the top and is succinctly expressed in Georgia Bank & Trust's brand message: Doing the right thing. So, when the director asked his question, there was a rush of people with the answer. "Every staff member wanted to explain the importance of the ethics of this bank and the importance of doing the right thing," Blanton says. "Everyone wanted to make sure that he understood how we operate here. I just really kind of sat back and enjoyed listening to our staff talk about the ethics of this bank." To understand Blanton's--and his staff's--strong sense of ethics, you need to look at the role models in his life. There was his father, T.V. Blanton. His father-in-law and a Georgia Bank & Trust founder Robert W. Pollard Sr. And local banker and community leader Russell Blanchard, who, in Blanton's words, "taught lessons without teaching lessons." T.V. Blanton was in the wholesale warehouse business in Augusta, representing the Havatampa Cigar Co. His business provided retail products--tobacco, candy and sundries--for retailers in the city and for country stores in Georgia and across the Savannah River in South Carolina. "He ran an entire wholesale operation on a 2 percent margin," says Dan Blanton In describing T.V.'s operation. "He had to run a business really proper and tight. He was an extremely good operator and was very loyal to his community." Community loyalty included supporting those city and country stores that supported you. "Those are the values he Instilled in me," Blanton says. R.W. Pollard, Dan Blanton's father-in-law, started his family's lumber business in the 1940s. That business flourishes today under the leadership of his children, with daughter Patty--Dan's wife of 43 years--serving as CFO. The business provides dimensional lumber to retailers, Including major home improvement stores, builders and other retailers. Patty's hobby is her farm, which also now provides a wedding site for rental to help feed all her animals. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] While Pollard started out as a lumberman, banking was another business interest and calling, Blanton says. "It took me 10 years to get comfortable with him," he adds. "He was incredibly smart and loved banking. I would be at his house at 10 o'clock at night and he and I would be discussing--arguing--something about banking. He and I would just be having a ball." Pollard wasn't formally trained from an analytical standpoint, Blanton notes, but he could listen to a loan request and he would know whether a person was a good credit risk or not, and then make a decision. Pollard was one of the founders of Georgia Bank & Trust in 1988, which wasn't his first community banking rodeo. An earlier institution, Georgia State Bank, was eventually sold to a larger regional bank in 1985. But dissatisfied customers soon after that began encouraging Pollard, Blanton and others to start a new community bank to meet their unmet needs. "My customers, I've kind of banked them for my lifetime," Blanton says. Since opening its doors in 1989, Georgia Bank & Trust has steadily grown, helped by favorable economic trends and demographics. …