For someone who runs a bank that sounds like it has a national footprint, USAmeriBank CEO Joe Chillura clearly relishes being the consummate local.
At 45, Chillura hasn't strayed far from his South Tampa roots as he's maneuvered through the banking world.
At Clearwater-based USAmeriBank, he likes to hire employees closely tied to the communities where they work. One such recruit is longtime Tampa banker M.G. "Manny" Alvarez Jr., the former chairman of Manufacturers Bank, who helped USAmeriBank line up customers who brought millions of dollars in deposits as it opened a new branch in Ybor City this year. It is the first community bank in the historic district in years.
Most of Florida's bank deposits may still be controlled by out-of-state megabanks with shifting mid-level managers. But the quick growth of community banks like USAmeriBank and C1 Bank may be catching their eye.
Five years ago, Chillura and fellow Tampa banker Brad McMurtrey opened USAmeriBank with the financial help of well-known Chicago banker Harrison Steans and his daughter, Jennifer Steans, who is currently the bank's chairwoman.
Today, the fledgling bank is up to $2.2 billion in assets, including a 15-branch Alabama operation called Aliant Bank that it bought last year, but plans to keep running under the Aliant brand.
In a recent interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Chillura talked about the importance of using local connections, whether it's a matter of taking on the big banks or keeping a certain professional baseball team happy.
USAmeriBank opened in 2007, right before credit markets seized up, small-business lending dried up and we had the Wall Street financial collapse. In retrospect, was your timing off?
Our timing was actually very good. The whole charter process that we went through was in late 2006, beginning of 2007. Shortly after we were approved, the (bank charter approvals) came to a screeching halt. We were freshly capitalized and able to attract clients (when) other banks weren't lending.
How big is the bank now?
We've got 400 employees here and in Alabama, a little over 200. We have an operations center in Largo and 10 branches in Tampa Bay, in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. We have a loan production office in Lakewood Ranch.
I understand you've become very systematic in how you open a new branch.
We typically hire the branch manager and the staff somewhere between three and six months in advance of opening the office. Then we start utilizing their contacts and their networks to start attracting business prior to even opening.
We've never opened any of the banks without having at least $5 million in deposits in the bank or in the wagon. We really build banks around people so when we identify a location is (simultaneous) with identifying a very solid banker we think fits.
So you followed that same process before opening the Ybor branch?
In Ybor, we were up to about $5 million in deposits before we opened and we're around $15 million now. We'll have added over $50 million in deposits in the three offices we've opened in the last six months.
Why keep the Aliant Bank name?
First and foremost, the Aliant name had a reputation as being a fixture in the Alabama business community. It's got a 100-year-old history; USAmeriBank, even here, only has a five-year history. It's not like we're going up there saying, "We're Bank of America." We're still trying to get people to know who we are here.
