It’s a conversation Tom Strickler will always remember.
“I was at the fair when Bill Mentzer came up and asked me, ‘Well, what are you going to do when you graduate?’”
Strickler was a senior at Kansas State University majoring in ag economics. At the time, his plan was to work somewhere else for a while and then join his dad, the late Ivan Strickler, at the family business, Strickler Dairy. He didn’t have a solid answer for Mentzer.
“I’m going to need some help with my ag loans,” Mentzer told him. “When you’re out of school, come visit with us.” A farmer turned banker, Mentzer was at Allen County Bank & Trust.
At the interview with Allen County Bank and Trust officers Ray Pershall, Bill James and Mentzer, Strickler was forthcoming. “I think I can give you five years, but after that I’ll be back on the farm,” Strickler told them.
“And when I said that, they all smiled at me,” Strickler recalls. “And I wondered then, ‘What do these guys know that I don’t?’”
That was in 1977. Needless to say, they knew plenty. Strickler never looked back, working 15 years at Allen County Bank & Trust, which eventually became Emprise Bank. He then moved to TeamBank for about nine years before he and Ken Gilpin agreed to open a Community National Bank & Trust branch in 2001. TeamBank merged with the former Iola Bank & Trust in 1990.
And now, 48 years later, Strickler is stepping down as president of Iola’s Community National Bank.
Mike Waldman is the branch’s new president. Waldman is no fledgling; he has been a commercial loan officer at CNB&T for 19 years and in the banking industry for 32 years. Until now, Waldman was the branch’s executive vice president.
“We could have made this transition years ago,” Strickler noted. “Mike’s ready to step right in and keep things going.”
And while Strickler is stepping down from his role as president, he’s not fully retiring. He plans to work half-time with commercial and ag loans.
“As far as I’m concerned, my relationship with Tom won’t change,” Waldman said. “I’ve told Tom I want him to be around here as much as he wants to be around here.”
When asked how banking has changed in their careers, Waldman and Strickler are both quick to answer: regulations.
“There have been times in my career when new regulations come along, and you just scratch your head and wonder if they even want us to make loans,” said Strickler. “When I started, we had one loan document that you signed once. Today, if you have a loan, we have eight to 10 pages that involve dozens of signatures.”
“There’s not a banker out there who wouldn’t say it isn’t out of hand,” agreed Waldman.
For small community banks, which are often first and foremost agricultural lenders, industry changes have also impacted their work.
