Salin Bank & Trust Co.        
Krystal Thompson
Tim Miller
110 W. Main Street
Fort Wayne, IN  46802
Phone: 260-399-1921   
Fax: 260-423-9566
Web: www.salin.com
 
Salin Bank is one of the few remaining independent, family-owned community banks in the Midwest. It began when William N. Salin Sr. bought a bank in 1983. Salin stated in a recent article "One day in 1983, a banker I was well acquainted with called and said, ‘Bill, you’ve always wanted to own a bank. There’s a bank in Elkhart that’s for sale."  The caller offered to become an investor, if Salin would orchestrate the deal. "The bank had never made any money and had little or no capital," Salin recalls. Undaunted, he put the deal together and sought additional investors: "I put my best six or seven clients into this enterprise. That’s how I got started in the banking business."

Throughout the next ten years Salin Bank continued to buy other small banks throughout Northern Indiana. Finally in 1996 through a reverse buyout, the Salin family bought Salin Bank allowing it to remain one of the handfuls of family-owned banks in the Midwest. Currently William Salin II is the Chairman of Salin Bank.

Tim Miller, the current Community President of Salin Bank said, "Bill Sr. is as accessible and humble of a guy as you could ever imagine. He has a large warm spot in his heart for Fort Wayne, which is well evidenced by this building. It was important to the Salins to support downtown."

These days, a family-owned bank is something of a rarity. Most banks have to meet the expectations of shareholders and Wall Street analysts. Instead of answering to investors, Salin is committed to the communities and people we serve.

Miller said, "As a community bank we are in the banking industry but from a slightly different focus than you might expect. I would say it is a slightly more traditional approach to banking. Very straight forward, we take good care of our clients’ deposits then we turn around and loan those out to our clients in business loans, mortgage loans, home equity needs, and car loans. We really try to fill that gap needed in the community for a very traditional banking relationship."

This focus in banking has been handed down through the years directly from Salin Sr. The same article from Hoosier Banker gives this quote from Salin Sr., “Salin clarifies the importance of banking: "When you’re in the banking business, unlike any other business, people have entrusted you with their savings. Bankers have to invest that money in such a way that the depositor will receive a return for his money and receive his money back."

"A second function of the bank is to loan money to people that need it, deserve it and will make good use of it. These borrowers create jobs, or buy a house or send their kids to college—all the things that human beings want to do and need to do to improve society. If we didn’t have banks to take the depositor and the borrower, and put them together, we would never progress. The banking business does all that."

Miller has been in banking for 21 years and when I asked why he chose banking as a career he stated, "What I have really enjoyed about the job; why I’ve stayed with this career, is that it is satisfying to take care of an individual’s needs or a company’s needs. To help them accomplish what they want to get done and really being able to share the "goods" and the "bads" with the clients."

Krystal Thompson, , agreed. "Just watching kids going to school, or being able to get their first car, or watching people purchasing their first homes or redoing their current homes; I think that is really rewarding to see. We really do make a lot of people happy helping them with dreams and things they want to do."

Miller believes you will see more locations in the next five to ten years. He said, "We are only Indiana focused. All of our branches are in Indiana. Our business owners are going to be based in Indiana, and by and large all of the mortgages and new loans are for Indiana. Having said that, there is a lot of geography between Columbus, Indiana and Fort Wayne."

Miller continued, "By being focused on the type of relationships I just described, we didn’t get caught up with all of the issues that have really kind of brought about the collapse of the financial segment. Our focus allowed us to always have enough capital in reserve to make loans to our clients and continue to offer solid interest rates to our customers and clients. That has also allowed us to be in the position of being able to take care of clients all throughout this last two years when many banks have had troubles."

Salin Bank has been a member of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce since 2000. They have actively sponsored events and their brochures are included in the Chamber’s Packet Program. You can often see them represented at events by Krystal Thompson who has been, and is active as a Chamber Ambassador.   The picture of an embroidered pillow, which is located in Salin Sr.’s office describes best why Salin bank remains one of the largest family owned banks in the Midwest. It says, "Triumph is just a little umph added to try."