A Conversation With ... Mark McFatridge

I’ve been with Regions for five years. I was actually chief administrative officer and chief financial officer for the Midwest region, which includes the states of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky. Regions is a community bank at heart. We just happen to (have) $142 billion in assets and cover 16 states.

What attracted you to Springfield from Indianapolis?

Opportunity. Before I came, we had the community banks in Missouri – up in Columbia, the Springfield-Branson market and Cape Girardeau – all run out of St. Louis. Our regional CEO elected to create (a) group focusing on the community banks in Missouri and asked me to come out and run that. It was a huge opportunity for me to come out to Springfield – a market that I knew because I’d been over the Midwest as our chief financial officer.

How many locations are your responsibility?

There are 37 branches spread out among what we call three banks. There’s a city president in Columbia, which encapsulates one bank. There’s a city president in Cape Girardeau that encapsulates another bank, and then the Springfield bank, which includes Branson. I’m kind of a player-coach. While I’m our area executive for the whole group, I am the city president for Springfield as well.

What are some specific plans for increasing awareness of Regions Bank ?

We just recently announced our sponsorship of Ball of the Wild (for Friends of the Zoo), so on June 22, it will actually be the Regions Bank Ball of the Wild. We chose that because it is … the event in Springfield. It’s a lot of fun, there are a lot of the right people we want to market to who will be there. We recently just sponsored the Manufacturer of the Year Award luncheon put on by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, which we were honored to be a part of. We’re looking for opportunities to be able to get our name out to events that are recognizable and memorable, and that benefit the community.

Talk about some of your accomplishments so far in Springfield.

When there are management changes, (with) the number of competitive banks that are here, they go talent-fishing quite a bit, and we were able to retain some really key employees … . We’ve also been able to recruit some top talent, including Paul Potthoff, who is our commercial real estate expert. We didn’t have a commercial real estate relationship manager. That was a huge hire for us. The other one is Pam Yancey. Pam actually worked for us up until about three years ago and left us to go to another bank … . She just started (back) with us … to run our retail group, our consumer banking area.

Have you always worked in banking?

Actually, no. My undergraduate degree is in accounting, and like all good accounting majors, I went into public accounting right out of school. I lasted one whole year – I hated it. I moved into banking, and worked for another national bank, Fifth Third Bank in Indianapolis, and worked there for a number of years. I started out in retail, but quickly moved to the commercial side of the bank. I did that for several years, went back and earned my master’s degree in finance at Butler University, and then left banking for about four years, serving as the chief operating officer for a small company in Indianapolis, and then had the opportunity to move back to banking.

Tell us about your family.

My wife, Deb and I have been married for 15 years, together for 20. We have two wonderful kids. Our son, Ryan, is 11, and our daughter, Emily, is 9. They arrived here for their first night in our house on Christmas Day. I was born and raised in central Indiana and had been in Indianapolis for the last 20 years, including going to school at Butler University.

Was it hard being apart during that time?

It’s a very long time to be away from each other. It made sense, because I had a lot of work to do up here, just getting ingrained in the community, getting a feel for the talent that we have here in the bank, the opportunities we have here in the bank. It allowed me to work the hours needed to get a handle on those things, while not affecting our family life. I would have felt guilty bringing my family out here almost 500 miles away from the only home that my kids have known, and then not being able to come home for dinner, or working on Saturdays and Sundays. It allowed me to do what I needed to do professionally … and it also allowed the kids to finish the first semester at their schools … and allowed us to find a home, sell our home, all of those things factored into it. I guess it was a necessary evil. About every other weekend I would head back to Indianapolis. [[In-content Ad]]