Question: How does Horizon Bank stay connected with the community?
DR: The basis of Horizon obviously is we are a community organization. Our roots are community in La Porte County. We've grown since then very rapidly. Really being a community minded organization does have its challenges and were there for the community both from a lending perspective to supply credit opportunities for those that need it, but also for deposit opportunities as well as trust for some of the high network people. Those opportunities a lot of times come from our activities in the community, which is not limited to just sheer writing a check, but we want to be involved in that. I don't think you can be involved in community and not get your fingers dirty.
Question: Horizon Bank is all about relationships, what is the importance in that?
DR: Our focus in the company is when we expand and open up new locations, whether it be a branch or move into a new market, we get people first. Building a branch does not create opportunities in the market having good people in the market creates the opportunities. We are people first. People have relationships. I've never seen anybody come in and hug our brick. They've hugged our people, though. We are a relationship company. We know that when people need assistance, or they need counsel, or they need advice, they want to talk to people.
Question: What made you embrace an online presence for Horizon Bank?
DR: When we see an opportunity that using a media that's available to utilize we know that there's going to be a market and there's going to be people who utilize it. We've got right now 50 percent of the people are over 50 are using mobile banking. We want to make sure that work we're a part of the adoption to that technology. We just we just spent a significant amount of money over the last six months, and we installed a brand new internet banking mobile banking system because we know that's the opportunity going forward. Social media is another avenue. At some point in time I think it's probably going to take over as the media just as we probably experienced forty or fifty years ago that newspaper and television were the mediums. We know at some point in time strategically it's the way that we will continue to focus our efforts.
Question: What made Horizon Bank pursue growth during hard economic times?
DR: We came into Valparaiso in the late 90's and opened up a few offices, hired some good people, and Valparaiso and Porter County as a whole has been very successful with us. we've had some outstanding people working in these markets. We've gone into Lake County, including the acquisition American trust. That's been spurred again by good people. We've hired good people first who knew the market. New people who could bring good relationships to the bank and that's been successful. We've also gone into Michigan. We acquired a bank in New Buffalo, but we've opened an office in St. Joe and we've branched out into Kalamazoo, South Bend, Elkhart, and Goshen. Those markets are doing very well. The challenge during those times has been probably more on a lending perspective trying to make sure that way maintaining good portfolio. Were still feel hopefully representing an providing services to the community.
Question: What's the importance of keeping news positive?
DR: The interesting part about being a lender for financial institution is that you have very little opportunity to make mistakes. You generally try to keep those mistakes, especially the loan portfolio, less than one percent. Conversely, when you really think about it, then you got 99 percent of your people who were buying cars, people who run manufacturing factories, people municipalities, etc., 99 percent of them are doing very well and are making their payments via credit is good and they're moving forward. They're making things happen in the community and in the economy. So you try and focus on that. If you make a mistake that happens. That's part of our business. We're in the business of risk. If we made no mistakes we probably wouldn't be business. We have you have to take some chances. A lot of times your chances are in just good people. That's our focus.
Question: What do you see that will be doing well 6 months from now?
DR: Obviously real estate is doing very well. I think there's a lot of pepped up demand for people the either move up into a larger home. You're also talking people who sell homes maybe looking at retirement. That's a transaction. Everything is a transaction in banking. That's what we take our opportunities from, but obviously real estate and our market is up. Home values are of overall, which is real positive. If people aren't comfortable or confident in the direction that their lives, the community lives, or the economic life of our country is going, then people don't buy anything. We are consumer driven economy. If people don't buy nobody sells anything, so the both have to happen. What we see coming up in the near future, I think that it's going to open up for the small business side. I think you're going to see more small business owners making investments to look at other opportunities in their markets to grow, and I think those investments are coming.