President & CEO, Meridian Trust Bank · Community banker since 1991
Portland · Meridian Trust Bank · 1185+ connections
I started at Meridian Trust as a part-time teller in 1991 while finishing my degree at Portland State, and I have held most of the jobs in the building since. I still open the Portland branch myself on the first Monday of every month, because the customers who come in at 9:01 on a Monday are the ones who need something.
We are a $1.4 billion community bank with three branches and one idea: take deposits from Oregonians and lend them to other Oregonians, with the decision made by a person whose name is on the website. In 2021 a national bank offered to buy us. Our board said no. I was proud of that answer.
If you run a small business in Oregon and the numbers have stopped working, call me before the problem gets bigger. That is literally the job.
Thirty-five years ago this week I counted my first cash drawer at the Salem branch. It was $11 short. My manager, Dolores, made me count it four more times until it wasn't. I think about that most days: the number is the number, and the only way out is through. Happy anniversary to the twelve people who were hired that same autumn and are still here.
A reminder of what a community bank is for: this morning we closed a $280,000 equipment loan for a Woodburn hazelnut dryer. Robert Tanaka explained to our board in 2016 why orchards need seven-year loans with one payment a year. We built the product. Today the product bought a dryer. That is the whole business model in one sentence.
The grower called me after signing. First new dryer on that farm since 1988.
Opened the Portland branch at 8:30 today, first Monday as always. Three customers waiting. One needed a cashier's check for a house closing at 10. One wanted to know whether we'd still be here in five years (yes). One just wanted to sit down somewhere air-conditioned and I told her she was welcome. All three are the job.
Average wait on first-Monday openings: 2m 40s. I checked. You're allowed to be proud of that.
We published Priya's balance-sheet one-pager for Q2 today. Still one page. Still in English. If you have an account with us and have never read it, read it: it is the single most honest thing a bank can show you.
This month the agricultural desk wrote its largest establishment loan yet: 120 acres of new hazelnut plantings outside Woodburn, principal deferred until the orchard bears in year seven. Six years ago we could not have written that loan. A director taught us how. That is what a community bank board is for.
And it sits in the Red Folder like every other concentration, so the board sees it every quarter.
Leads a 410-person bank across Portland, Bend and Salem. Chaired the 2020 PPP response (1,400 loans in eleven days) and the 2022 core-banking migration.
Ran day-to-day operations and lending while the long-time CEO prepared for retirement.
Responsible for branches, operations and small-business lending; opened the Bend branch with Rosa Delgado in 2009 as head of small-business lending.
Built the small-business lending desk from two people to eleven.
Where it started. The name plate is still in my desk drawer.
B.S. Business Administration, Portland State University, 1993
Pacific Coast Banking School, University of Washington, 2004
Dolores trained me too. She also made me re-count. I now understand why.
The number is the number. Framing this for the finance team.