Get to know Patricia Minard, bank president and pilot

Patricia Minard is the kind of person who turns a bad day at work into a hobby – flying.

“Seriously,” said Minard, who is president and chief executive officer of Southwest National Bank. “I went home and talked to my husband. I was working a lot of hours, I thought there must be more to life than this. He said, ‘What do you want to do that you’re not doing?’”

Minard earned her pilot’s license in 2003 and today pilots a Cessna 182, “which came off the line here in Wichita, Kansas.”

That may come in handy as Minard travels to monthly meetings of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s board of directors. She was elected to the position by her fellow bankers this year.

“What I see as my key responsibility is to share with the Kansas Fed what’s happening in our area, what we see in our economy, and to promote the success of community banking,” Minard said. “I think a lot of times when people think of bankers, they think of great big banks, and I think particularly during the great recession, community banks were still here making loans, taking care of customers.”

Born in Salina, Minard grew up in several small Kansas towns before graduating from Hill City High School. Her father was a soil conservation officer “and every time he got promoted, we moved.”

She earned an accounting degree from Kansas State University, worked as a certified public accountant and then as a bank examiner with the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“You see a new bank every two weeks, some well managed and some poorly managed, frankly. I don’t know that I would be as prepared for this position (at Southwest) without that opportunity.”

Minard joined Twin Lakes Bank in 1999 as a compliance and loan review officer and became its president two years later. In 2004, she oversaw its merger with Southwest National.

“It’s been interesting over the past 20 years watching our customers age gracefully, and seeing new families come in,” she said. In recent years, the bank has become especially concerned about helping elderly customers avoid financial scams.

“The other thing we do is we’ve helped Wichita grow, helped our downtown area and Old Town, doing financing and helping the city grow and move.”

Minard has flown in seven Air Race Classics, four-day, 2,400-mile races that promote women in aviation. She and her husband, Joe, enjoy visiting their four grandchildren, who are split between Leavenworth and Denver.

“That’s why we have the airplane,” she said.

Joe Stumpe

This story was originally published January 26, 2018 at 11:12 AM with the headline "Get to know Patricia Minard, bank president and pilot."