Mr. Nasca: Evans is a strong and growing community-oriented financial services company that was founded 90 years ago as a commercial bank with a single branch in Angola, N.Y. We have grown measurably over the last 10 years and expanded well beyond that original branch. Today with over 600 million in assets, we provide banking, insurance and investment services in Western New York, which is the Greater Buffalo market area, through 13 branches and 14 insurance offices. As a relationship-focused organization, we seek to serve as a trusted adviser for our customers and create an excellent work environment for top talent. Our bank operations have grown measurably over the last 10 years, during which we built seven branches and acquired one. We expanded into insurance when we acquired M&W Insurance in 2000, which was the first of 12 insurance acquisitions we have made in the last 10 years. We combined these acquisitions into what is now the Evans Agency, and have included financial services within that business group. In July of 2001, we listed our stock on Nasdaq In summation, we are a community financial institution in a marketplace where community banks have predominantly gone away and are yet still valued. This is a good position to be in, as this is a very competitive market.
TWST: Tell me about your own background and those of some key members of your team.
Mr. Nasca: I have over 26 years of financial services experience, with the last three and a half here. I joined Evans as President and a member of the board in 2006. And in April 2007, I was named CEO. I had previously been with First Niagara Financial Group for 11 years in several leadership roles, culminating in an appointment as Bank President. I also served as Treasurer and Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning. I previously ran their retail operations for a period of time, as well as being involved in mergers and acquisitions. I helped to formulate their strategic blueprint, which is the strategic plan they are operating under currently. When I started with First Niagara, it was about 800 million in assets and primarily a savings bank; when I left, they had 8 billion in assets. Prior to that, I spent five years with Chemical Bank in both lending and capital markets. And prior to that, I was with Buffalo Savings/Goldome for eight years.
As to the other key members of our team, when I joined Evans, the board challenged me with growing the institution to try to protect our franchise and maintain independence as a community bank. At the time, we were a little small to do that effectively. We were looking to gain some scale and at that point, we realized that in order to do so, we needed some additional management. We made two strategic moves early in the process. We were devoid of a CFO; that slot was open when I got here, which was advantageous for me. I hired Gary Kajtoch, who is our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, an individual I'd known for many years and who had been with M&T Bank. Gary has over 20 years of financial experience in the banking industry, 17 of which were in the finance and treasury divisions of M&T. We also made a change in the retail division of the bank, and I added another M&T executive, Cindy Rich, who had over 20 years of experience at M&T in retail operations, marketing and finance. We also had a team of longer-tenured, highly experienced folks, such as Bill Glass, who has over 29 years of banking experience, with more than 16 at Evans as a Chief Credit Officer. His previous 13 years were at M&T and Chase. And Bob Miller, who has 29 years of insurance agency experience, is the President of our insurance agency. We reorganized at the end of 2009 to change our structure to be more sales and relationship focused. We consolidated our sales functions under Bob Miller, who, in addition to being the President of our insurance agency, is arguably our best salesperson. Cindy Rich was assigned the role of Executive Vice President of Operational Excellence and Credit. She handles all of our operations. We separated our credit unit from lending for greater independence. John Eagleton rejoined the team last year as a new Chief Commercial Lending Officer and has over 20 years in credit. He had previously been with Chase, Key and Evans, along with GE Capital and GMAC. We also added Mike Bonito as Vice President and Manager of our consumer lending group. Mike has over 25 years of experience in mortgage lending, including 14 as President and CEO of his own company, MultiSource Funding. He is a past President of New York State Mortgage Brokers Association. So I believe we have an unparalleled management team that's stronger than what you might typically see in a 600 million community bank.
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