Everybody on Main Street seems to know Glenn Wilson

RMA Journal, The, April, 2005 by Pamela Martin, Kathleen M. Beans

Everybody on Main Street in Laurel, Maryland, seems to know Glenn Wilson. He's the president and CEO of the 115-year-old Citizens National Bank, part of Mercantile Bankshares Corp., a $15-billion bank holding company. As he walks to a barbecue restaurant a couple of blocks from his Main Street headquarters, Wilson stops to converse with other Laurel businesspeople he passes. Once he's in the restaurant, diners greet him warmly from their tables.

Glenn Wilson is also widely recognized within RMA. An active member since he began his banking career more than 25 years ago, he has a long history of leadership in RMA at the chapter and national levels. As chair of RMA's Community Bank Council, he serves on the board of directors. He is a past president of the Chesapeake Chapter and has been a member of its board for more than 15 years. On this particular January afternoon, he joined about 20 members of the Chesapeake Chapter who had gathered in the Citizens boardroom to listen to an RMA audioconference on real estate appraisals. And following our interview, he rejoined the chapter board meeting.

"You get out of everything what you put into it," says Wilson. And that's why he gives as much as he can to the bank, its employees and customers, to the community of Laurel, and to RMA. In this interview, Wilson discusses the joys and challenges of community banking and the role RMA plays in the industry.

RMAJ: How did you begin your career in banking?

Wilson: I started in banking in 1977 as a college intern. I had planned to do a management internship with the Social Security Administration, but that fell through late in the hiring process when they discovered that my mother was employed there as a clerk. Social Security had a firm rule against nepotism. So the Towson University Career Center suggested I apply for an internship at Maryland National Bank. And that's how I got into banking.

After graduating, I continued to work for Maryland National Bank. I started out in the lending accounting area and later entered the client area as a relationship manager, eventually becoming a team leader and assistant senior credit officer. As the result of a merger in 1993, we became what was then NationsBank. After 16 years there, I joined Citizens National Bank in 1996 as the senior lending and credit officer. The roles were combined at that time, as the bank's asset size was about $450,000. The bank now has $1.2 billion in assets, so it's almost tripled in size.

RMAJ: Has the senior lending and credit role since been separated?

Wilson: Yes. We split it last year when I became president. When a bank gets to about $1 billion in asset size, it's time to seriously consider separating the functions.

RMAJ: Describe your market for us.

Wilson: Our market is the Baltimore-Washington corridor along 1-95. We have 23 branch offices.

RMAJ: According to your letter on the bank's Web site, 2003 was a year of rebuilding to better position the bank for continued future success. Since becoming CEO, what changes have you implemented and what is your strategic direction?

Wilson: At the time I became president, we were completing the merger with F&M Bank, which increased Citizens' assets by 25%. The merger created an opportunity and challenge to create a broader management team. That's when we split the roles of senior lending officer and senior credit officer. As part of this restructuring, my boss and the former president of the bank, Peter Floeckher, moved to Mercantile Bankshares, our holding company, to head up the affiliates. He took one of our three EVPs with him to be his right-hand person. So we lost two very senior people, and I moved into a new role. We put a senior officer from F&M in a key role and hired two other senior managers to round our new senior team management team.

With that backdrop in place, one of the first things we did was update our five-year strategic plan. It was a year overdue because of the merger, but it was also the perfect time to redo it. It not only helped set the direction for the institution, but in many ways it had to change because of the merger. It was also a good team-building exercise for our senior management.

RMAJ: What other things did you do to build the team post-merger?

Wilson: in conjunction with our strategic plan update, an outside consultant facilitated some on-and off-site' meetings, Which presented excellent opportunities for the management team to bond. During that time we reaffirmed our vision--and some major initiatives resulted. The first was a reemphasis on customer service, both internal and external. The second was to ensure better communication. And the third was the streamlining of our processes both from the credit perspective and the branch perspective. To accomplish the streamlining, which is still under way, we held focus groups with a cross section of people from various areas of the bank. We asked them what they do, where the trouble spots are, and what drives them crazy.

The fourth initiative was a reemphasis of our values. P-R-I-D-E is in our mission statement, and each of those letters stands for a value: