5 questions with Randy Summers

Randy Summers started his new job as Sunflower Bank’s Wichita market president on the same day he turned 65.

Up until July 31, the native of Jefferson City, Mo., had been a commercial lender for 37 years, 15 of them at UMB Bank in Wichita.

Summers, a father of three daughters with six grandchildren, graduated from the University of Missouri with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business. When Summers entered the workforce in the mid-1970s, he said, it was tough to find a banking job, so he started his career as a bank examiner for the state of Missouri.

The Salina-based bank for whom Summers now works announced this week that it planned to merge with Denver-based First Western Financial, a deal expected to create a $2.5 billion bank with branches in six states and an investment and trust business with $5.5 billion in managed assets.

He said he doesn’t yet know what the full effect of that deal will be on the bank’s Wichita operations. But it should serve to boost the bank’s wealth management business.

“That’s kind of (First Western’s) strength, and I’m sure we’re going to have their expertise brought into our markets,” Summers said.

Q. 1 You spent more than three decades focusing on commercial banking. What, at this stage of your career, prompted you to make a move into a bank president job?

A. I was just really intrigued with it. It looked like a good opportunity and something I would really enjoy. And I think the bank really needed my talents so it worked out for both of us.

Q. 2 You’ve been in this new role for almost two months now. What are the biggest differences between what you are doing now and what you did before joining Sunflower?

A. Before I was primarily managing and selling commercial services for the bank, and maintaining a loan portfolio. Here, I’m doing the same things and trying to lead a commercial team plus 35 retail employees. That and the bank is going through a pretty major culture change right now. Over the last couple of years, the senior management team of the bank … is taking the bank in more of a professional, commercial direction. And they’re taking more of a sales approach … including performance objectives for their employees. Most banks are going to that, it’s how the industry is going from what I’ve seen. And it’s a hard culture change for people.

Q. 3 How would you assess the local appetite for business loans?

A. I think they are on the increase in Wichita. But Wichita … we sure aren’t recovering like the rest of the nation. The pie is growing, slowly.

Q. 4 You said a professor at the University of Missouri was influential in leading you to banking. Were there any other influences?

A. I guess I never saw a poor banker so I thought that might be a good career to get into (laughing). It was a job dealing with community leaders in your town, you were going to be involved in all aspects of the community. Banking was different back then. It was pretty stable, too. (And) I may have some banking genes. My great-grandfather was a banker in the early 1900s. He lost the bank. I guess he had to sell it, during the Depression.

Q. 5 What is one short-term goal and one long-term goal in your new job?

A. The short-term goal is to get the Wichita market organized and some systems set up to help our people get that sales culture started. And of course the long-term goal is to incorporate it and get results.

This story was originally published September 24, 2014 at 1:28 PM with the headline "5 questions with Randy Summers."