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Has your role changed at West Bank?

Actually the position itself is something new to West Bank. The bank primarily has been a heavily commercial bank where 80 percent of all of our deposits and relationships are commercial-related. And in the past, they would build branches around the metro to help better serve the commercial customers we had already, not necessarily to attract more. Now we’re sitting on seven branches in Des Moines and three branches in Iowa City. They’ve never really been utilized as a self-sustaining branch. So my role is to be the overseer of the branches.

What networking groups are you involved with?

Especially our generation, we really value the relationships and I think that the next generation coming up is really going to buy more on emotions than based on logic. So being the manager now, I want to fully get our managers integrated into a network and communicating with the business community, the chambers, the volunteer nonprofit organizations. My success has actually come from that realm. We’ve started networking groups, we’ve run them, we’ve passed them on, we’ve started new ones. We founded and I’m currently president of the Greater Des Moines Integrity Network. It’s over 3 1/2 years old and 24 members strong. Then we started another called 19th Hole Networking. It’s geared around taking the formal networking format out on the driving range.

How did you end up in Des Moines?

I went to Iowa State. After graduation, my wife and I moved back to Springfield, and that’s where I started banking. We knew from the get-go that that was not a place where we wanted to raise our kids. It took us 3 1/2 years to finally find an opportunity to get back to Des Moines. I took a business banker position with Commercial Federal Bank right before the merger with Bank of the West. Since then, I’ve made couple of moves and am now at West Bank.

What excites you about the banking business?

Actually getting involved with our customers. Banking is funny. It’s like buying a cellphone. There are a lot of carriers. Some have some other features that are different, but they basically sell the same thing. The difference is in banking you’re dealing with the emotions of somebody’s money.

What is a career goal you still want to accomplish?

Well, a long time down the road, I would love to be a president of a bank.

What do you like to do for fun?

We do a lot of camping, outdoor stuff, a lot of mountaineering. A lot of church activities.

What do you like about Des Moines?

One thing that stuck out, for the most part, people are very friendly, very open to talk to. In Springfield, when I first got into banking, I would call not only current customers, but people who didn’t bank with us and I got some of the rudest comments in the world. Then I came to Des Moines and everybody’s pretty much willing to talk to you. I think the career opportunities are good here, too. And the last thing is just the overall cleanliness of Des Moines.

What words do you live by?

Keep everything in perspective.

What’s one achievement that stands out?

We climbed Granite Peak in Montana. Another probably is I’m one of the youngest VPs West Bank has ever had, so that kind of says a lot about their faith in me.