A month after a merger left him out of a job, Cuy Mauck now leads another bank

A month after the merger of Rose Hill Bank and American State Bank left former Rose Hill president and CEO Cuy Mauck out of a job, he’s landed the same titles at Chisholm Trail State Bank.

“We were delighted when the situation with Rose Hill freed Cuy up,” says Chisholm Trail chairman Mike Klaassen, who also is the majority stockholder.

“He has a vision of what a community bank in Wichita could be.”

That vision includes a bigger focus on commercial lending.

“We believe we have the opportunity . . . to service those customers in the $2 million to $10 million range,” says Mauck, who also will be a stockholder in the bank.

Klaassen says the bank’s previous model worked “fabulously well” until the crash of 2008.

“We were open for a change.”

The bank, which Klaassen’s late father, Ted, and his business partner, the late Richard Chase, founded in 1975 has $74 million in deposits and about 20 employees at its headquarters and one branch.

“Our intent is to increase the capital of the bank substantially,” Mauck says.

“We feel being a Wichita-based bank, that’s going to add a lot of value,” he says. “We feel that we need to have local leaders . . . heading up our commercial division and our consumer division.”

Mauck says Chisholm Trail has done business loans from the time it opened, “but not large, complex commercial projects.”

He wants the bank to be involved with projects that include things such as industrial revenue bonds and tax-increment financing districts.

“Lending at that level is much more complex and specialized than it used to (be),” Klaassen says.

Former Chisholm Trail president and CEO Mary Berry is now executive vice president of operations.

Just as Chisholm Trail is going to grow, including with additional employees and board members, Mauck says the bank can help other businesses expand as well.

“We think we can build a nice niche . . . for the small business borrower that wants to grow locally.”