Mid-Missouri names new leadership

Lee Keith is the Springfield-based bank’s new president and CEO, and D. Steve Harmon is vice chairman and chief lending officer, according to information released June 24 by Mid-Missouri. Keith replaces Brad Weaver, who resigned April 4 after just nine months on the job. Keith starts July 7, and Harmon has been employed with the bank since April, according to Mid-Missouri Senior Vice President Gary Jordan.

The bankers, who each have more than three decades of industry experience, hail from opposite sides of the state. Keith was most recently a regional president with Farmington-based First State Community Bank, and Harmon was executive vice president of loan administration at Country Club Bank in Kansas City.

The pair are taking the reins of a bank that was thrust into the spotlight in April 2007, when Joplin branch President Scott Rosenthal and loan officer Kay Muskrat were fired and escorted from their offices by authorities. Three more branch employees were fired in the following weeks, and P. Lee Gilbert – chairman, president and CEO of Springfield-based holding company Mid-Missouri Bancshares Inc. – confirmed a joint investigation by the Missouri Division of Finance, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the bank’s bonding company.

In July, the bank announced it was voluntarily shutting down its mortgage arm, Mid-Missouri Mortgage Co., but offered little explanation.

Mid-Missouri ended 2007 on a low note, sustaining a $2.4 million loss in the fourth quarter, according to an FDIC call report. The bank also charged off $4.3 million in bad loans last year, according to FDIC data, and reported assets of $752.7 million as of March 31.

Since March 2007, Mid-Missouri also has watched at least seven executive officers resign, and many held seats on the bank’s board of directors. Some said they left Mid-Missouri to be closer to family, but most are unwilling to discuss the bank’s woes.

“It was a good time for me to separate,” Weaver told Springfield Business Journal in June. “What I told Mr. Gilbert and what my (resignation) letter said is there is a time when parties should separate, and for us, that was the time.”

New blood

Attempts to reach Keith and Harmon for interviews were unsuccessful, and Mid-Missouri’s management did not respond to queries for additional details about their work histories. Jordan said neither had concerns about joining the bank.

SBJ’s research indicates that Keith was most recently employed at a Sullivan branch of First State Community Bank, which has 27 branches in southeast and east-central Missouri. First State Community Bank reported $944.6 million in assets as of March 31, according to Missouri Division of Finance data.

Keith, a Missouri native and University of Missouri-Columbia graduate, will provide strategic leadership for Mid-Missouri’s 15 bank branch presidents, according to the release.

Before joining Mid-Missouri, Harmon was the executive vice president of loan administration at Country Club Bank in Kansas City, which reported $555.4 million in assets for the quarter ended March 31. Country Club Bank has nine branches in the Kansas City area.

Harmon, who has spent the last 20 years in senior management positions, also has worked at banks in Kansas and Oklahoma, according to Mid-Missouri. He will direct lending functions for Mid-Missouri “to establish portfolios of stable, strong credits throughout the organization,” according to the release.

Jordan declined to comment on the immediate goals for Mid-Missouri’s new executives, but he did say that FDIC regulators are not consistently involved in bank operations.

Missouri Division of Finance Commissioner Eric McClure would not say whether his department was still actively investigating Mid-Missouri. He said the division took allegations of impropriety at the bank’s Joplin branch seriously and acted appropriately.

Generally speaking, McClure said the division’s powers are limited to restricting or prohibiting officers from working at state-chartered banks. Evidence of federal violations is referred to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office, he added.

Executive exodus

Weaver’s departure from Mid-Missouri capped off an exodus of executives that began more than a year ago.

Michael Hoff, who was president of Mid-Missouri’s El Dorado Springs branch for three years, was one of the first to leave in March 2007, just weeks before the Joplin branch firings and subsequent investigation. “I was certainly happy I left when I did,” he said.

Hoff is now executive vice president of Community First National Bank in West Plains, which he said is closer to family members in the Mountain View area.

Other Mid-Missouri executives who left after Hoff include Weaver, Bill Lee, Steve Hite, Bob Berlin, Doug Buckner and Thane Kifer.

Lee, who was president of Mid-Missouri’s Mount Vernon branch for 10 years, left in August and is now community president for Arvest Bank branches in Neosho and Carthage.

“I was one of the old-timers,” Lee said. “The only thing I can say is that I had reached a point in my career and that it was time to look at a change.”

Berlin and Buckner are now at Empire Bank. Berlin, who was president of Mid-Missouri’s Plainview Road branch for four years before resigning in December, said he expects his former employer to rebound.

“I would just say it’s an organization with a good footprint in southwest Missouri,” he said. “I think they certainly have the size and the market presence that I don’t think they would have any permanent damage.”

Kifer, who was Mid-Missouri Bancshare’s general counsel and human resources director, also resigned in December. He is now listed as president and CEO of Schell City-based Farmers State Bank, working out of its Bolivar branch, according to the state Division of Finance.

Weaver, Berlin and Hite, who left Mid-Missouri to become president of Central Bank in Lebanon, all served on Mid-Missouri’s board of directors. Gilbert is still board chairman, but it’s unclear who has filled the vacancies left by the trio of executives. Jordan declined to provide an updated list of board members.

The spring 2008 edition of the Missouri BankNews Bank Directory lists Mid-Missouri’s board members as Gilbert, wife Wanda, Weaver, Hite, Berlin, Bolivar branch President Randall K. Sudbrock, Alana Neale, Brian Riedy, Tawnya Kennedy, James S. Dawson and Cheri Edge. [[In-content Ad]]