Norwalk banker on a world mission

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Jan 11, 1999

NORWALK, Wis.--The president and CEO of Community State Bank in Norwalk is lending his expertise to banks in former communist nations thousands of miles from this community of 564 people.

Last May and July, John D. Dreier traveled to the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan to advise officials of the privately owned Maksat Bank in the capital of Bishkek, a city of nearly 1 million people.

And he expects to be sent back to Maksat Bank this year, or to Russia, by ACDI/VOCA, a private nonprofit organization created by the 1997 merger of Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance with Agriculture Cooperative Development International.

Dreier, 47, is a volunteer for the organization and provided consulting services to three banks in Poland during a four-week VOCA assignment in 1994. That was soon after he read about VOCA in a banking journal.

"I love to travel and I love to learn, so I sent a resume to VOCA," Dreier said. "I guess they felt I had done a decent enough job," so he was sent to Kyrgyzstan last year.

During his May 5-21 and July 16-Aug. 9 visits to Kyrgyzstan, Dreier helped officials of the privately owned bank develop a strategic plan and improve its marketing functions. "I dealt with a wide range of people--marketing, accounting and financial people, as well as executives," he said.

Maksat Bank was founded in 1990. "They're a rapidly growing bank," Dreier said. "They have about 200 employees. They're very big in foreign exchange as well as traditional banking services."

But Western banking practices are still new in Kyrgyzstan, which became independent with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"They're very advanced in foreign exchange transactions," Dreier said. "But from the standpoint of lending, speed of lending and paperwork, they're significantly behind us.

"It certainly is a developing, evolutionary phase," Dreier said of Kyrgyzstan banks. "They are virtually a cash-based society," with few transactions involving checks or credit cards. That is changing slowly, he said.

Kyrgyzstan's economy is in better shape than Russia's, Dreier said, but in the past year financial problems in Russia have caused a 30 to 40 percent drop in the value of Kyrgyzstan's currency, the som.

"That's meant a big drain on deposits," Dreier said. "And that has meant a strain on the banking system's ability to lend."

The mountainous, poor country in Central Asia, west of China, has about 4.5 million people and is pro-Western, he said.

"Coming from a Soviet economy where everything was centralized, the idea of a private commercial banking system is relatively new," said Cassie Rademakers, regional recruiter at the ACDI/VOCA central United States office in Madison, Wis.

"We rely on a people-to-people exchange of skills, which John Dreier has helped us with significantly," Rademaekers said. "By targeting the commercial banks in Kyrgyzstan, we're trying to make the banking industry there more sound so businesses, farmers and everybody else there will have more trust in the banking system and better access to credit, which will help their economy and eventually result in more connections with American businesses."

ACDI/VOCA was created by America's agricultural cooperatives and Farm Credit Banks to help agribusinesses, cooperatives and private and government agencies around the world. Rademaekers said anyone interested in becoming a volunteer can call her at 1-800-386-2286.

Kyrgyzstan is several thousand miles from Norwalk, where Dreier was raised. His father, Byron N. Dreier, was president of the bank until he retired in 1992 and is still on the board of directors.

John Dreier owns controlling interest in the bank, which he said has more than 20 stockholders. His sister, Judith Johansen, manages the bank's Community Insurance division, which shares a building across the street with the bank's Community Realty division. The bank started the insurance and real estate agencies to fill a need in the community, Dreier said.

Dreier worked part time at the bank off and on during his high school and college years. After college, he held various positions in commercial banking and in arranging financing for projects, and was a partner in a firm that acquired, developed and managed commercial real estate projects. He lived in Atlanta, Ga., from 1984 until 1992, when he returned to Norwalk to head the bank.

He returned home "mostly because of the opportunity to ultimately own a business, which was important to me. And while the big city has its advantages, it also has its disadvantages."

Dreier enjoys being a small-town banker. "People will walk in and almost treat it as it's their home," he said. "They'll walk in and say hello. And ask about the weather."

Although banks around the nation have been merging in recent years, Dreier said he has no plans to sell. "If anything, we would consider buying another small bank," he said.

In the future, Dreier said, the bank will consider opening branch offices and new lines of business, such as selling securities.