Aug 19, 2019
For any business to grow and succeed, it must focus on what it does best, provide clients with exceptional service and have necessary support. As Buckeye Community Bank continues to celebrate our 20th anniversary, we are constantly reminded that what we do best is to ensure that funding is available to the small and mid-sized businesses that fuel our local economy.
We have told our founding story often during the past two decades and continue to do so today, because it still rings true. The spark leading to Buckeye’s creation was the obstacles encountered by an entrepreneur, with a good business plan, when pursuing financial resources but found a lack of funding and support for local businesses. Before Buckeye, there was no institution focused solely on the local business community.
Today, with seemingly endless banking options available, it is a local institution like Buckeye that is so crucial to the success and vibrancy of the community it serves. Decision makers possessing a knowledge of the local marketplace, and having a stake in its success, keeps Buckeye the first option for the business community. Numerous bank branches dot the corners of intersections everywhere you look, but they lack the deep connection to where we live and work. While a physical location for a big bank may seem local, the dollars deposited in that branch leave our community and even our state to fuel other economies.
When bank mergers and acquisition continue, even successful companies may find they no longer fit an institution’s portfolio and are no longer a valued customer. The changing banking landscape not only means a loss of funding available locally, but businesses may not be able to execute plans that translate into jobs and revenue for our region.
This issue’s Beacon Spotlight features Stripmatic Products, a company that has witnessed terrific growth and success since Bill and Liz Adler purchased it in 1996. The Adlers brought a laser-focused approach and hard work to a struggling Cleveland business that was founded in 1946. As a result of their strategy, Stripmatic has reestablished its dominance with a proven manufacturing process that creates tubular parts for its automotive and transportation clients with superior quality and efficiency delivered. Despite the company’s year-to-year sales, revenue growth and expansion from 12 to 40 employees, its former bank seemingly started to lose interest in the company after it was acquired by an out-of-town bank. Stripmatic found they no longer received the level of service and flexibility that it needed.
One of the advantages of working with Buckeye is the tremendously talented staff who demonstrate their dedication to our business leaders and our community. Melissa Velez, this issue’s Buckeye First Mate, is one of those staff members genuinely passionate about our community. After spending the first part of her career working for a bank that itself was acquired by a larger institution, Velez was recruited to join Buckeye. She has seen the
results firsthand of what being a community banker means and the invigoration that comes by championing the small and mid-sized businesses that power local jobs.
Every day more and more people are figuring out that bigger isn’t necessarily better. Buckeye is a trustworthy institution that holds itself accountable to its clients and community. While million-dollar advertising budget may try to convince you that the other banks care, banking at Buckeye brings you a full menu of services available with the added benefits of local decision making, higher quality service, better stability and more significant community impact. We, at Buckeye, remain faithful to serving local businesses because we are community bankers and we are your neighbors.
