GenoaBank revealed its newly renovated Oregon branch office in a ceremony May 22 among Oregon city officials, community supporters, bank employees and clients.
GenoaBank was founded in 1902 and its board of directors voted to open a branch inOregon in 1988.
Staci McDaniel, marketing manager for the bank, said the Oregon branch was last remodeled in 1998 and “was due for an upgrade.”
The independent community bank has six branches across the area, and hopes to bring all branches up to date in celebration of the organization’s 110th year, McDaniel said. She said they are currently working on revamping the Genoa branch, which is the bank’s headquarters.
Martin Sutter, president and CEO of GenoaBank, said that Maumee is next on the list to undergo renovation. He said that they’re getting readyto break ground at the Conant Street location and the project will be started in the next month.
The Oregon renovation consisted of adding and remodeling individual offices for bank employees to meet with clients. Sutter said that “because we’re growing substantially in the Oregon community, we were running out of office space, which is a good problem.”
Regina Barber, customer service teller at the Oregon branch, has had to work through the construction since the project’s beginning in January, because the bank stayed open during the remodeling.
“The renovation went very well, I don’t think it really bothered a lot of our customers,” Barber said. “[The construction company] cleaned up after themselves. We had to clean up a little bit, like do some dusting, but it helped us also refresh our atmosphere at the bank.”
Michelle Quilter, Oregon branch manager, said that a need for increased privacy was a main reason for the bank’s new look.
“People want to work with people that they know and trust. Part of trust is privacy, [which is necessary] in order to provide our customer with what they need,” Quilter said. “They can come in, we can shut the door, we can sit and talk to them, and develop a real relationship with them that lasts. That’s what we want.”
“Private offices are important for the customers,” Sutter said. “They don’t want to talk business out in public.”
“We’ve also moved GenoaFinancial, which is an insurance and alternative investmentproduct service group, to this facility and … we’ve added a few lenders so we’ve renovated the office space to give our branch manager space to make sure we take care of customers,” Sutter said.
McDaniel said that the addition of GenoaFinancial to the Oregon branch was a factor in renovating, in order to help with the additional staff and clientele it brings.
When GenoaFinancial was first launched in March 2011, it was housed at the Crossroads branch for the first few months before moving to the Oregon branch, McDaniel said.
Five employees of GenoaFinancial will now be housed at the Oregon branch, McDaniel said.
Quilter said that with the addition of GenoaFinancial, the Oregon branch will now be a full service bank.
“We’re a large enough facility wherewe can do it all here,” Quilter said. “We can meet all of our clients’ needs.”
Quilter said that anything from starting a small business to opening a checking account to planning for retirement can now be handled all at the Oregon location.
Rick Jaques, small-business owner of Simply Green Lawn Care Service, attended the opening ceremony.
“We went to GenoaBank for a business loan to start my company and they were unbelievably helpful throughout the whole process of getting me started and walking me all the way through it, so that’s why we’re here,” Jaques said. “I’ve gone to a couple of the bigger banks and they weren’t nearly as willing to work with us as they were here so that’s why we ended up here. We’ve been here ever since, everything of ours is here.”
City of Oregon Council President Thomas Susor said that “as corporate America and corporate banking takes over the world today, small communities want to cling to that local bank, the friendships and personal touch with local banks.”
Susor said he believes that GenoaBank is committed to the Oregon community.
