Mr. Tuttle: Merchants Bank is a 160-year-old company that is a commercial bank. We cover most of the state of Vermont; we have 34 offices, so we cover a good piece of the state. The company has been built over time through a combination of de novo branching and acquisitions that were done at various points in the past. Today we are just about $1.4 billion in total footings. We are, as I said, a commercial bank. Our focus is on banking businesses, households and municipalities throughout the state. We do that through those 34 offices that I mentioned, and we do have a dedicated group of 11 people that focuses specifically on corporate business banking. We've got a group of three people that focuses specifically on the municipal side. The municipal side is relatively new to us; we've only been doing that for a couple of years now. We also have a wealth management group, Merchants Trust Company, which has been with us basically throughout our history. Typically, these clients are bank customers who have been fortunate to accumulate some wealth over the course of their lives, and we offer them this service to help them manage that wealth for their benefit and their families.
TWST: Tell me about your background and about those of some key members of your team.
Mr. Tuttle: I have been here at Merchants for 20 years, became President of Merchants Bank in 2006. I actually had a couple of lives here. I worked here from 1986 to 1990, left for five years, and then I have been back since early 1995. Before becoming President, I was Senior Credit Officer and then Senior Lender, Chief Operating Officer. The person with the longest tenure on our team is Tom Havers. Tom has been here for over 35 years. He's is our Chief Operations Officer. He really manages everything on the back end of the house here and is obviously very familiar with all the inner workings of the company, from IT infrastructure to the phone network. Tom makes sure we have a sound operating platform for all of our enterprise and all the physical plant assets. The head of our community banking division is Tom Leavitt. He also has been here for close of 20 years, and he has all those 34 branch offices reporting to him. In addition, Tom runs our marketing program. Geoff Hesslink is our Senior Lender. He has been here for 15 years. He moved into that position when I moved up to the position of CEO. He is a native of Vermont who left to work in one of the big banks in New York, got trained and came back here, and we're glad to have him with us. Janet Spitler is our CFO, also close to a 20-year veteran. She's been with us and has been our CFO for over 12 years. We've all worked together for a very long time, know each other extremely well and have a very strong working relationship.
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