5 questions with Mark Heiman

Mark Heiman is back where he wants to be.

Heiman, who spent most of his 30-year banking career as a commercial lender, joined Intrust Bank in mid-September as a senior commercial relationship manager.

Prior to joining Intrust, the 53-year-old father of six was Wichita president for Sunflower Bank, a post he held for about a year. It was his first job as a bank president.

“It didn’t end up being the fit that either side thought it was going to be,” Heiman said of his departure from Sunflower.

Not only was the Sunflower job Heiman’s first chance at being a bank president, it also was a means to get him back into the commercial banking business. He left Bank of America after 21 years because the last four years he spent working in Bank of America’s private banking business.

“That wasn’t something I wanted to finish my career doing,” Heiman said.

Q. 1 What’s the experience been like for you since joining Intrust?

A. In a word, refreshing. There is an experienced and talented management team that takes a long-term view of success and keeps the customer at the center of their decisions. This approach meshes well with my own views.

Q. 2 How did you get into the banking business?

A. I wish I could say that it was a well-formed career decision, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I was simply taking the line of least resistance. A fraternity brother of mine was the senior lender at (the former) Boulevard State Bank, and he offered me a job without an interview, and that was too easy to pass up.

Q. 3 What was your first job at Boulevard?

A. My title was credit analyst, but as a newly minted college graduate with a little bit of computer knowledge – remember, this was 1984 – I was given lots of special projects involving technology integration.

Q. 4 What is a good day like for you?

A. When I started in this industry we used to call a good day 3-6-3 banking: pay 3 percent, charge 6 percent and be on the golf course by 3 p.m. Those days are long gone. A good day for me is spending time with my customers and prospective customers getting to know them and their business needs and then matching up the resources of the bank to help them accomplish their goals. It is incredibly satisfying to travel around Wichita and see companies I’ve known and worked with over the last 30 years, and feel like I’ve had a small part in their success.

Q. 5 What’s one thing most colleagues and clients don’t know about you?

A. I grew up in a very small farming town in Missouri (Holden) where my parents owned the local grain elevator. A prime motivator for me to stay in school was to make sure my career tool was a calculator and not a scoop shovel.

This story was originally published October 22, 2014 at 12:15 PM with the headline "5 questions with Mark Heiman."