¬ Monday
J U N E
1 3 ,
2 0 0 5
•
S T A R T R I B U N E . C O M
M I N N E S O T A’ S
T O P
N E W S
C H O I C E
•
M I N N E A P O L I S
•
S T .
PA U L
COFFEE WITH: JULIE SANDS CAUSEY
Position: Chairwoman, Western Bank. • In the news: Last Tuesday, Western Bank, which has six locations throughout the Twin Cities area,
celebrated a grand reopening of its St. Paul headquarters in a new $4 million building at 663 University Av.
Why did you build a new headquarters
building?
This a community we absolutely love.
There’s a huge amount of economic development going on and a huge opportunity for
further economic development in this area.
So we’re able to stay focused here on what
we’ve done for 90 years, literally since the inception of the bank when it was first chartered in 1915 within a block of here. It’s who
Western Bank is. Western Bank is centered
in Frogtown and has been for many, many
years. The building we left was torn down
so we could build this building. That building was really becoming quite dilapidated.
What this building allows us to do is to make
a pretty bold statement internally and externally that we’re committed to St. Paul broadly
and to University Avenue and Frogtown more
specifically.
The other thing it allows us to do is to
make a statement that we’re focused on
moving forward in the world of community
banking, that we feel that community banking is really important in terms of the Twin Cities economy. There are many big banks here
doing a terrific job and are really committed to
their customers, but many of the larger banks
aren’t as interested in the small-business and
nonprofit customers that we are.
Where did that niche come from?
I think Bill Sands had a huge amount to do
with that being a primary focus of the bank
and committed to this geographic area and to
the ideals of helping out small businesses of
color and immigrant businesses for years and
years. About 12 years ago, he and a couple of
friends and colleagues started the Neighborhood Development Center, which is upstairs
and run by Mike Temali. It has been spun off
from the bank for tax reasons as a totally separate entity, but WIND–Western Initiatives
for Neighborhood Development–continues
to be a subsidiary of the bank, and it’s related both to the Neighborhood Development
Center and the bank. Neighborhood Development Center and Mike Temali were able to
help even more entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color with not just the lending part of
borhood and work in this neighborhood.
So there’s a connection between that
mission and the fact that your family members have lived in the city of St.
Paul?
I think there’s a big part of that. My grandfather, who bought the bank in 1935, lived
in the city of St. Paul. Arthur William Sands
was thrilled to essentially create a bank that
looked very much like the small-town bank
model that he knew from being a farm boy.
He envisioned himself starting a small-town
bank on University Avenue.
things but the technical assistance and the
training to really make that an opportunity for
viable businesses to get started and incubate
and move forward.
So the commitment came from
Bill Sands . Why did he care?
I think Bill really believes, and we have all
really come to get excited about the fact, that
if this economy is going to be strong and vibrant and if this community is going to be
healthy, it needs to be a community that has
opportunities for all sorts of people.
What is it about Bill Sands and the rest of
the family that has led you folks to take
chances with immigrant businesses and
inner-city businesses?
I think there’s a heart-and-soul connection that it’s the right thing to do and it feels
like we really are helping these companies
get going and move forward. I have three
kids in St. Paul public schools, and my kids
are in neighborhood schools where there are
40, 50, 60, 70 percent of the kids in poverty,
and 30 or 40 percent of the kids not speaking English at home. We know those families. We see those families. Our kids are in
school with the families that live in this neigh-
Bill is Arthur’s son?
Bill is his son, and Art Sands bought the
bank in 1935, about 20 years after its original charter. As most banks were at that point,
post-Depression, it was in a very difficult
time. He had moved here to be a bank examiner and was in position to hear about banks
that were going under. He was one of 12 kids
in a farm family. His two sons were Bill and
Bob. Bob is my dad, and Bill is my uncle. Bill
was in the banking business. He was at First
Bank at the time. My father, Bob, was a lawyer at Fredrikson & Byron, where he was for
33 years. Both of them to this day are on the
board of directors of the bank. I joined the
board about five years ago and the first family member in the third generation to join the
board and have been sort of anchoring the
third generation, if you will.
What had you done before joining the
bank board?
I have an MBA in finance from Wharton
and an undergraduate in economics and had
spent 15 years doing international economics
work with Minnesota-based multinationals.
Why didn’t you stay with the multinationals?
It’s more impactful to do community banking than to do international economics, I
think. This feels closer to building a widget,
if you will. On the consulting side of things,
you talk about a lot of concepts and you philosophize and you write reports, and I got to
fly all over the world, and I got all these interesting opportunities, but it wasn’t at all clear
that it was impactful even to the companies,
let alone to the individuals within the companies. To come here and to know that every
deal we do, every business that we finance, is
a chance to move forward for that family, for
that company, for the folks they employ, for
the neighborhood, means a lot to me.
When did you become chairwoman?
Two years ago. I actually joined the board
without any intention of being here on a dayto-day basis. I joined the board because we
thought it would be terrific to have somebody
from the third generation get involved and
didn’t realize I was coming into the business
and sort of becoming the next generation of
family leadership.
How did that happen?
The Sands family cares a lot about perpetuating this bank because we think it’s an investment in all the stakeholders of the bank,
really. We’d love to see this bank move forward as a community bank, as an independent bank, for many years to come. And Bill
and Bob are 63 and 65 years old, and there
was the feeling that if we were gong to do that
we need another generation of family members involved in the bank. So many of the
community banks have been purchased by
larger banks and have merged and been acquired. We think we can do better business,
more business, if we continue to stay independent, if we continue to stay family-owned.
Why does it have to be family-managed
to stay independent?
We do have professional management.
There’s a CEO and president from the outside
–Steve Erdall–who just does an absolutely
terrific job managing the bank with his team
of people, and that has worked extremely
well from a professional management standpoint. But I do believe that long-term vision
and commitment to community and commitment to economic development is something
that has originated and been pushed on the
family side of things.
I assume there have been opportunities
to sell the bank.
It would be really easy to sell the bank.
Have you come close?
Nope.
Why not?
I think our fear if the bank were sold it
wouldn’t be the same bank. If the bank were
sold, it might not have the same focus on
economic development. It might not have the
same focus on the communities in which the
six banks are located. It might not have the
same focus on small business and on entrepreneurs of color and immigrant entrepreneurs. I don’t think it would be the same if it
were owned by a bigger bank.
Larry Werner
Posted with permission from Star Tribune. Copyright © 2008. All rights reserved.
#1-25407551 Managed by The YGS Group, 717.399.1900. For more information visit www.theYGSgroup.com/reprints.