Profile: Steve Gilmer

Minnesota Banker jazzes up lobby.The State Bank of Delano, Minn., has gotten more colorful because of its chairman and CEO's hobby. Steve Gilmer has been collecting jukeboxes for more than 30 years, and the collection has blossomed into décor for the bank's lobby..Gilmer began his musical odyssey more or less on a whim.."I saw an old jukebox at a restaurant in 1980 and I decided that I wanted one," Gilmer said. "So I put an ad in a Minneapolis paper: 'Jukebox wanted — $100 reward.' After I placed the ad, I received calls from other collectors who wanted to know, 'How's it going? Did you find it?' because they were interested in buying it from me. I got three that way, just advertising in the paper, because this was before the internet got going.".Gilmer traveled to Superior, Wis., to purchase a jukebox and flew to Tulsa, Okla., to investigate another lead. He bought two there, although one came only as parts in boxes. The boxes were driven to Minnesota, and Gilmer assembled the jukebox himself.."I do quite a bit of the assembly, but I hire somebody else to do the rechroming, to replate the cases with nickel," he said. Gilmer also has help with the mechanical work and wood refinishing, and occasionally has to call in an expert for particularly challenging restorations..Gilmer kept on collecting throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Around 2006, his collection peaked at 27 jukeboxes. He has since run out of room in his basement and has sold a few..The bank contains six jukeboxes from Gilmer's current 25-piece collection—three in the lobby, two in the bank's lunchroom and the oldest jukebox, a smaller 12-record style, holds pride of place in Gilmer's office..Primarily, Gilmer collects jukeboxes made by Wurlitzer, which dominated the market in the 1930s and 1940s, although he also has some models manufactured by Seeburg, Rock-ola and Filben..The jukeboxes generally don't come with records, and Gilmer fills his machines with the early rock and roll music from the 1950s and 1960s which he prefers. Because the machines were made in the 1940s, most of them play the larger 78 rpm records, although some have been retrofitted to play CDs, including a Filben model from 1946 whose design was inspired by diesel train engines..Although most of Gilmer's jukeboxes are functional, he doesn't like to turn on the ones in the bank. "I don't like to turn them on because the kids come in and start punching buttons or slamming the coin slots potentially damaging the equipment," Gilmer said. "I had to do a lot of tinkering to get them in working condition again.".In order to keep them fully functional, however, the jukeboxes should be played at least once a month. "Otherwise the oil dries out and gets sticky, so the records don't move in and out right. Then things jam and start to break," he said..The jukeboxes have become connected with the bank's brand, with a jukebox appearing on the company car along with the bank's name. The car is used for everything from driving in local parades to helping an employee if they temporarily need an extra car..Gilmer also collects Russian paintings and grows lady slippers in his spare time. While his day doesn't look much different now that he's passed on the title of president to his daughter Wendy, he is looking forward to retirement someday, when he can devote his free time to his hobbies..Transition marks fourth generation of Gilmer leadership.When Wendy Gilmer succeeded her father, Steve Gilmer, as president at the State Bank of Delano, Minn., at the beginning of the year, she became the fourth generation of the Gilmer family to lead the bank..Wendy Gilmer's great-grandfather Bert Gilmer served as a non-owner president of the bank from 1940 to 1954. He also owned a granite works company headquartered in Delano. His son, Don Gilmer eventually took on the granite works and the bank, after he was named president in 1954..When the owners of the bank decided to leave banking in 1973, Don Gilmer bought the bank and brought his son Steve with him.."The bank was about $12 million in assets at that time. Capital was fine but banks were cheap back then," said Steve Gilmer, who became president of the bank in 1985. "My father could buy a bank and run it with 10 employees, whereas at the granite works, he had 150 salesmen working in 14 states, 200 people in the manufacturing plant and the company's four quarries and 50 people running the office, so he realized that the bank was more profitable than running a business with that many staff to manage.".Wendy Gilmer started at the bank in high school as a teller, but time spent studying abroad in Germany whet her appetite for travel. "It also was a requirement, that, if I were to come into the family business, I would have to get banking experience elsewhere and I would have to get my MBA," she said..So Wendy Gilmer spent time working for Commerzbank, first in New York and then in Frankfurt, Germany, as an analyst and lender. She also worked for American Express in London, where she received an MBA from London Business School.. "I got an appreciation for banking. It's a highly regulated industry, but it's also an industry where there's constantly change and growth; there's always something to learn," Wendy Gilmer said. "I liked the idea of community banking versus corporate banking, in the sense that you're making an impact in your community and you can tell that you're making an impact on individual customers. So that motivated me to come back.".Since rejoining State Bank of Delano in 2005, Wendy Gilmer has worked in a variety of roles, mostly in lending, and also served as the bank's chief financial officer. As of Jan. 1, she has moved into the president's role, and Steve Gilmer has become chairman and CEO.."The transition was something we had talked about for a long time—what it would look like—and we've done so much together in terms of working with customers, working within the industry and our organization, that it really was seamless," she said. "Dad's still very active. We enjoy working together, and it's always good when you have that person who you can really continue to learn from.".There aren't any other big changes on the horizon for the bank, and she thinks community banking will remain relevant far into the future. "We're going to continue to keep up with the different technological changes, bringing customers the services they want the way they want them," she said. "There is definitely a niche for community banks to give the personalized service that customers and small businesses want."