Wheatland Bank expands in Washington

Branches in Moses Lake, Quincy are 'success stories'

COLUMBIA BASIN - A bank is in the process of expanding throughout the Central Washington area on the heels of the success of its Columbia Basin branches.

"It really entails an expansion of our branch delivery system and our services in those markets," Wheatland Bank President, CEO and Board Chair Sue Horton said. The bank is also expanding in Spokane, where it is headquartered.

The bank was formed in 1979 in Davenport to serve the needs of dryland farmers in Lincoln County.

When Horton came aboard in 1999, she and the board of directors set out to remain an independent bank in their strategic plan.

"We want to make sure we don't sell, we don't go public," she said. "Our goal is to remain an independent, privately traded bank. And so in our strategic mission, we need to focus on growth, expansion and enhanced profitability."

At the time, the bank earmarked two areas for expansion -Spokane County and central Washington.

"We've accomplished a great deal already," Horton said. "The bank was about $70 million when I came on in 1999 and today we're about $175 million. And we have grown from about four branches to about nine before this new wave of expansion. So we've increased our presence in both eastern and central Washington."

The bank's branches in Moses Lake and Quincy are well-established markets for the company, Horton added, noting the area was a good fit because of the agriculture and small business focus, and hiring of the right people for the locations.

"Our strategy is one of organic growth, meaning we like to build our own branches rather than acquire other banks or branches," Horton said. "Our success has really been tied to finding the right people. We hire, when we can, very experienced bankers who have proven themselves in terms of excellent customer service and performance."

The bank has recruited 10 bankers and is opening locations in Wenatchee, which opened Dec. 10, and a branch in Yakima opens in February once branch applications have been approved and the space is ready.

Employees at the Yakima branch are already on board, Horton said, and have been assigned to the Quincy branch while their office is being renovated.

"We're very excited about this next wave of expansions for us," Horton said. "We have never wavered from our commitment to agriculture and small business, and we have diversified within agriculture. We started with the dryland farming operations and as we moved into Moses Lake and Quincy, we got more into the irrigated crops. As we move into Wenatchee and Yakima, we'll be diversifying further with tree fruit, hay and orchard lending."

Agriculture is very strong right now, and Horton said the bank expects the trend will continue.

About 45 percent of the bank's loans are in agriculture, while another 45 percent is in commercial and commercial real estate loans.

The expansion enhances the bank's ability to provide service in the area by having more locations, Horton said. Ten new people have been hired, and Horton said another 10 would probably be hired.

"Moses Lake has tended to be kind of the regional hub for our Central Washington branches," she said.

While the bank has temporary short-term lease facilities in Wenatchee and Yakima, it is looking in both markets for real estate to build the same kind of prototype branch as the Moses Lake location.

"In the meantime, Moses Lake tends to be the area where we provide our regional training and have our regional meeting," Horton said. "There's just more focus really on that as a regional hub."

As the company expands and hires people, many of the people it brings on board have 25 to 30 years of experience.

"We look to those people not just to help us expand in those new markets, but to help us continue to build a better bank," Horton said. "We believe in a very open culture; all of our officers are involved in strategic planning. They all have a voice in helping us with our mission to constantly improve and constantly focus on how we can better serve the customer. As we bring on new branches, we really are bringing the focus from the Central Washington area into the boardroom and into the management of the bank."

The bank continues to enhance its services and technology, include remote capture, a new technology where customers can make deposits from their desk at work through a little scanner which sits right on their desktop.

The bank has been ranked in the top 1 percent of banks in its peer group for technology, service and security.

"What that means is our online banking, our cash management banking and all of our networks and mainframes are extremely secure," Horton said. "That's very important to customers in today's world, with the risk of identity theft. So really it means we'll be continuing as we grow to be able to provide more to the customers: Newer services, improved technology, higher lending limits, more expertise in a variety of areas and the depth of our staff, those kinds of areas."

Wheatland Bank's Moses Lake location opened about six years ago, Horton said.

"It has been a total success story for Wheatland Bank," she said. "In fact, this year, it hit the largest in terms of total deposits of all the branches in the Wheatland Bank network."

Quincy has also "been a complete success story," Horton noted, with the location neck and neck with the bank's Spokane branches for the largest amount of loans for any branch.

"We see the Columbia Basin and Central Washington in general as an area of great economic opportunity," Horton said. "We think we're seeing more and more people moving into the areas from the west side of the state and other areas. We think those trends are very positive and present great opportunities for our bank and our customers."

For more information about the bank expansion, call marketing director Josh Falconer at the Spokane headquarters at 509-242-5626 or call the area branches in Moses Lake at 509-764-4602 or Quincy at 509-787-9808.