HERB BENHAM: San Joaquin -- its efficiency, smiles and plump pens -- was my kind of bank
| Monday, Oct 19 2009 04:59 PM
Last Updated Monday, Oct 19 2009 04:59 PM
These are a few of my favorite things:
The pens. All my transactions at San Joaquin Bank were punctuated by one of the bank's plump white pens that lay generously on the counter between teller and customer. No one has enough pens, and they looked like a peace offering.
"May I have that pen?" I would say.
"Of course," the teller would respond.
Disclaimer: I bank at San Joaquin -- or banked, since San Joaquin as I knew it is no more. Many of the people who worked there are my friends. From top to bottom.
More disclaimers: Bart Hill, who ran the bank, and his wife, Napier, are neighbors of ours. Our children went to the same schools, we worked at the carnivals together, and walked in the same parades.
Even without my level of affection, the service at SJB was exquisite. Lines were rare. On most visits, I would be nose to nose with a teller within 60 seconds, eying one of those plump white pens.
With a larger bank, there is the strategizing that takes place before a visit. When should I go? Will I get bogged down?
Those forays require gritting your teeth and timing it much like you would if you were navigating the L.A. freeways. Can I escape traffic? Will I arrive home before dinner?
SJB had no lines, but it did have good service and a serenity that made a customer feel more prosperous than he really was. "Look how they are treating me. I must be somebody," he thinks.
Our children opened their first bank accounts at San Joaquin. The bank made a fuss. The children took home passbooks and pens.
Bart was there. He lent gravity and meaning to the occasion. He played the part of the stern but friendly banker without changing expression.
The calm at the bank paralleled the quiet in their home. The Hills are gracious no matter the occasion. They have better manners than the queen, duke and half the royal court. So do their girls.
It would be easy to pile on right now, either with those who suggest that there might be a government conspiracy against the bank that led to its closing or with others who wonder how the bank could have allowed itself to be awash in what turned out to be toxic loans.
I don't know enough to give an opinion. That's for somebody else to deconstruct.
I do know that business involves risk. San Joaquin Bank was a start-up and became successful, employed hundreds of people, and as the Californian story on Sunday indicated, pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into local charities.
Saturday night, we drove home on 178 from dinner in east Bakersfield. We took a left on M Street and a right on 17th. Banners announcing Citizens Bank were draped over San Joaquin's downtown location.
It was surreal. Surreal may be another way of saying how swiftly life can change and eventually does for all of us. Not a cheery thought, but a realistic one, perhaps.
Most days, I pass by Franklin School. The playground on the 18th Street side is lined with three huge trees. They shade in the summer and soften the look of the asphalt track the rest of the year. The Hills, with their children, planted those trees.
Quiet contribution. That's what I'll remember.
Monday morning, I walked to the new Citizens Bank downtown. Instead of pens, there was a large platter of cookies from Sweet Surrender at a table near the entrance.
It was a relief to see the same faces -- Scott Begin, and Doris Depew and the rest. I spoke to Todd Hollander, an executive vice president with Citizens, sent from the headquarters in Ontario to calm the natives.
He wanted my opinion so I gave them: Give back to the community. Keep the same people in the bank.
That was the plan, Hollander said. Citizens is owed a chance. We'll see if the bank inks its name in the lights.
