First Person: David Toombs

By David Toombs, president of First State Bank of Rosemount, Minn., as told to Tony Telschow.. We're hearing a lot about financial crisis right now, but hundred-year banks have come through hard times before.. I missed the first financial crisis; that's the year I was born, in '35, soon after the bank holiday. During that time, the big correspondent banks took money from the government. Little First State Bank of Rosemount never took a nickel. We had to close for a day, but we opened up the next day and got back to business.. I've been at the bank since January of 1953. There was only one place to start: as a teller – and janitor. Computers were nothing when I started. I was in high school at the time. I was drafted in 1957 and went into the Army. I got out in 1959, came back to work, and I've been here ever since. All of my training is on-the-job training; I never went to college.. Our bank originally was owned by S.A. Netland, who also owned a state bank in Mendota, Minn., and a state bank in Northfield, Minn. That bank was right across the bridge from Malt-O-Meal. It eventually became a Northwestern State Bank, part of the old Norwest corporation. Mr. Netland eventually sold our bank to F.A. Ruhr. In 1949, Ruhr sold out to my uncle and my dad.. My dad didn't exactly set out to be a bank owner. He moved to the Twin Cities from Northfield to attend the Minnesota School of Business. To earn his living while he went to school he tended the pool tables at a Minneapolis rec center. He knew the Minnesota governor at the time and talked to him about getting a job in the government. The governor told him: "You don't want to work here; get a job on the outside.". So my dad went to work for Mr. Netland; he was sent to help out in the Rosemount and Mendota banks for just a couple of weeks. Then he met my mother and decided to stay. That was 1919.. My mother's parents both came over from Germany. My grandfather was the town butcher. My mother said that she was the first non-Irish person born in Rosemount. She couldn't speak English until she went to school, and my grandmother made her speak German in the evenings at home.. My mother became president of our bank when my dad died in 1970. When she retired my brother Bob took over. When he retired I took over.. Today we have 19 people on staff. Nine are family members. My wife is vice president of human resources and also a member of the board. Our sons are vice presidents of lending, operations and IT, respectively. Our daughter manages new accounts and internal audit. Our daughter-in-law is the head bookkeeper, and our nieces share the head teller duties. Our two other children are part owners who work outside the bank.. Our principle for working as a family is, what happens at the bank has to stay at the bank. You don't bring it home. Family functions, birthday parties, Christmas gatherings and Thanksgiving meals are not the places to discuss business.. Although we were officially chartered on Jan. 1, we opened our doors on Oct. 9, 1909. We'll have a nice little celebration. No other bank can say it has been in Rosemount that long.