Life in Banking: OTC honors Bill Turner

When 8-year-old Turner, after two months on the job, asked for a raise to 15 cents an hour from 10 cents an hour, the widow soundly rejected his request.

“Billy, I can get a man for 15 cents an hour,” Turner recalled the widow saying in 1940.

Turner, chairman of Great Southern Bank, shared the story after he was awarded Ozarks Technical Community College’s 2008 Excellence in Business Award on April 11 at OTC.

Turner became the fourth recipient of the annual award, joining the ranks of SRC Holdings Corp. founder Jack Stack, the family behind O’Reilly Automotive Inc. and Springfield hotel magnate John Q. Hammons.

“Not only is this guy a banker, but this guy’s an entrepreneur,” said Stack, who was in attendance to honor Turner.

“He’s got a great heart, and he shares it with people within his organization. He’s built one great organization.”

Turner told the audience during the question-and-answer session conducted by Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce President Jim Anderson that he learned the value of money early in life. Born in 1932, during the heart of the Great Depression, Turner said he also learned compassion for other people.

“That’s important,” he said. “Although you may have something, not everybody may have as much.”

Turner shined shoes and hauled trash during his youth. He never dreamed of becoming a prominent banker and business leader when he was young, he said.

“My dreams, by any means, weren’t long term. I just thought, like many other kids, about the time (when) I could have a bicycle. And as I got (to) 12 or 13, I thought more about girls, (and) they thought less about me,” he joked.

The event gave Turner an opportunity to share lessons from his banking career. He wasn’t always a banker, though.

Turner served in the Army, earned a bachelor’s degree in business and public administration in 1956 from University of Missouri and worked for Kraft Foods Inc. as a sales manager. He and wife Ann even owned a small Kraft distribution business in Lake of the Ozarks from 1960–61.

“We scraped up what money we could,” Turner said about buying the Kraft distribution business as a young couple. “The guy who was selling the business let us sign an oath for the rest.”

After their business in Lake of the Ozarks burned down, Turner looked to the U.S. Small Business Administration for a loan to start another business. The SBA offered him a job as a loan officer in Kansas City, so he took that instead.

In 1966, Turner came to Springfield to work as vice–president of commercial lending for Citizens Bank, which a few years later was bought by Kansas City-based Commerce Bank. Turner joined Springfield-based Great Southern in 1974 as president after former president, Russell Cather, died suddenly. Turner’s son, Joe Turner, succeeded his father as president in 1999.

“I talked to Ann and the kids – they were young – about me leaving Commerce, and they thought Commerce was the greatest bank on earth,” Turner recalled, to which Anderson quipped, “Joe doesn’t still use that in commercials, does he?”

Since taking the helm at Great Southern, founded in 1923, Turner has increased assets to $2.4 billion from $79 million. He’s grown the bank to 39 branches from a single location, and he took Great Southern (Nasdaq: GSBC) public in 1989.

“I’m proud of him for lots of reasons,” Joe Turner said of his dad. “He’s led the company through not only easy times but hard times, and he’s grown the bank through it all.”

Bill Turner’s quick to say that his business successes shouldn’t define him. Philanthropy and family are his chief concerns, he said.

For example, Turner served for 35 years on the CoxHealth board of directors, and he and Ann donated money to CoxHealth to renovate its Medical Arts Center, 1000 E. Primrose St., which was renamed in 2006 as The Bill and Ann Turner Women’s and Children’s Center.

“Legacy to me is, ‘He had a good family, and his family loved and respected him,’” Turner said. “If that was on my tombstone, that would be quite as good as anything.”

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