2010 Rising Stars in Banking: Andrew Sexton

Andrew Sexton's father Thomas, a lifelong corporate attorney born in Iowa and living in St. Paul, Minn., started buying small Iowa banks with his brothers during the farm crisis of the 1980s. The elder Sexton encouraged his children to consider roles in one of the banks or in his St. Paul-based multi-charter BART Bank Group. Andrew, however, had different plans..The younger Sexton hoped to move to a small town eventually, but as an unmarried college student he chose a different route, moving east to attend Boston College. Then he jetted as far away from the rural Midwest as was possible, to the provinces of China, to Bangalore, India and other far-flung locales. Sexton had taken a job with a Boston-based consulting company that specialized in cost-of-living-adjustment analyses for multinational companies with expatriate employees. He would take two-month-long trips and visit a dozen cities around the world, collecting prices for rent, food and other expenses, meeting with expatriate families and recommending COLAs based on his findings to corporate clients. He traveled full time for three-and-a-half years, then took a client services position that kept him near company headquarters in Boston, except during a brief period when he and his new wife were stationed in Brussels, Belgium..After seven years with the company, Sexton and his wife decided they wanted to live closer to their families in Minnesota and Wisconsin. In 2004, he took a job with Readlyn Savings Bank, Readlyn, Iowa—symbolized by the "R" in BART Bank Group.."I had some background in finance and numbers from my previous job," Sexton said. "But I started at the bottom; I worked the teller window and learned from scratch.".The bank with a staff of eight serves a town that (according to highway signs) contains "857 happy people—and one old Grump.".The motto refers to an annual town tradition in which a lifelong resident who is at least 65 years old is chosen as the honorary "grump," a town icon around whom summer's Grump Days festival is organized. One of Sexton's early initiatives was to tie the bank more strongly to the local culture..He joined the Readlyn Community Club, which sponsors Grump Days and selects the annual grump. He also established a new bank-sponsored post-harvest customer appreciation event called Grumptoberfest, a celebration that extends the allure of the grump into fall and celebrates the town's German heritage..Sexton said he introduced Grumptoberfest because "it didn't seem like we were doing the little things that we had done and most little banks do.".He also spearheaded some major business initiatives for the bank, including its introduction of internet banking and debit cards..Outside the bank he helped found the Grump Trail Foundation, raising $125,000 toward a $1.4-million tab for five-and-a-half miles' worth of bike trails. In time, the Grump Trail is expected to link up to a much larger trail system running through 80 scenic miles of Iowa. Sexton's work with the foundation helped secure federal and state grants as well as support and financial contributions from the county board of supervisors.."The bike trail will be a feather in our cap. I can really see people riding their bikes to Readlyn for the day from Waverly," a city about 12 miles away..Since moving to Readlyn, Sexton and his wife have welcomed two daughters, with a third child expected this month. He said spending time with his family and gardening are his two favorite pastimes..He completed the program at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, last year. He also completed the Iowa Bankers Association's commercial lending school, after which he served on the student advisory board for three years, eventually serving as the council's chairman. Sexton noted that he would like to get more involved in IBA's government relations efforts.."Sharon Presnall [IBA's senior vice president of government relations] is awesome, and what she does is so interesting to me," Sexton said, alluding to concern over competition from tax-advantaged competitors such as credit unions and Farm Credit System institutions.Other Rising Stars in Banking honorees include:Todd Means, MidWestOne Bank, Iowa City, IowaPatrick Artz, State Bank of Bottineau, N.D.Lesly Couper, Alpine Bank, Rockford, Ill.Daniel Padilla, First National Bank of Omaha, Neb.Bryan Bruns, Annandale State Bank, Annandale, Minn.Annette Russell, Security Federal Savings Bank, Logansport, Ind.