A Conversation With ... Jeff Johnson

Effective in September, you took the helm as community bank president of Wood & Huston’s Springfield market, which has more than $47 million in local deposits. What changes do you plan to make and what will you keep the same?
I’m taking over for Carol Carlson, who has been here 15 years and is still here. Carol is slowing down and heading toward an eventual retirement, but going part time first.

I dove right in. I’ve got an existing customer base and some of those loans I have moved over and I’m working with existing contacts. I’ve lived here all but two of my 39 years; there are a lot of people I have done business with. I will continue to work with them.

I’ll be working with Carol to take over some of her customers, but she will be here for the foreseeable future.

Wood & Huston has nine locations across five Missouri cities, including Marshall, Cape Girardeau and West Plains. With only 0.59 percent of the Springfield area market share, does the bank have plans for regional growth?
There are no plans to grow in terms of brick and mortar branches right now. Certainly, with the technology we have today, it keeps us connected with things such as mobile banking. Our generation doesn’t bank the same way our grandparent’s generation did. The brick-and-mortar building isn’t what it used to be. As you have seen, some of the banks today didn’t exist 20 years ago and have an online presence only, such as Lending Tree or Ally Bank.

A lot of banks have become a loan center to some extent and customers use debit cards more than anything. The desire to grow is certainly there. Our spreading out has helped us become the strong bank we are. In the Ozarks, during the last few years there was a big downturn financially and a lot of losses were recognized in the market. Because we are so spread out, we have been able to make good money because times may not have been as rough in other areas.

With dozens of banking institutions in the Springfield market, what can you do to keep the bank competitive in the local market?
Loans are as much, if not more, about relationships. It’s not as much about rates. There is a place for that with some of the bigger banks, but their best interest sometimes isn’t the community – it’s their shareholders. Our bank is adamant about being able to serve this community. It’s not just lip service. I have witnessed it firsthand with the people who work here. Locally, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve worked at a lot of banks, but the relationships customers have here, with people at this branch, are special.

What challenges do community banks face right now?
From a regulatory environment, we are getting to some degree punished for what bigger banks did. Community banks serve the community, and you want to do that in a way that is good for the customers but still makes the bank money. When you have so much regulatory pressure and you are being asked to add more and more oversight jobs, then it really makes it hard to do that. There is a lot of pressure on that end. Some of the bigger banks can absorb those things better. Community banking will always have its place, but it’s sometimes a struggle to survive. When it comes to things like Dodd Frank, there are some opinions of doom and gloom and some of wait and see. We are a wait and see. It’s the changes we have to deal with. This industry is used to a lot of regulation.

Wood & Huston Bank was established in Marshall in 1874. How do you plan to build on that 139-year history?
When you come into a place that has been doing this for almost 140 years now, you kind of have this attitude of just don’t mess up. They have been doing this for so long as a bank, it’s easy to rely on the senior management. Knowing you have someone to lean on is great, but at the same time, putting your own stamp on it is important. There is a mentality that this is an over-banked community. I don’t think there are a lot of bankers who would disagree with that sentiment. But I want to show this is a great community for this bank to be in for years to come.