Geese calls lure longtime North Dakota banker into retirement

Northwestern Financial Review, Sep 19, 1998 by Olmsted, Monte

Richard Ritter's 40-year banking career will come to an end just in time for goose hunting, a passion he's had nearly every fall of his life.

It can't hurt that Ritter's home and bank, The First State Bank of Munich, are located in an area known for some of the best waterfowl hunting in the country. When Ritter retires as bank president on Sept. 30, he'll be bagging banking, in hopes of bagging his goose limit.

The season begins Oct. 3.

"We mostly get snow and blue geese here," said the 59-year-old Ritter, who uses a 12-gauge or 10gauge shotgun when hunting birds.

Munich, a town of 320 in northeast North Dakota, has held Ritter captive since his career began. He never worked at any other bank. When he started at The First State Bank of Munich as a bookkeeper in May 1958, the farmboy from nearby Clyde had little idea he'd be sticking around so long. It's just that 9 everyt h i n g seemed to fall into place.

"It don't seem like 40 years went by, but they went by pretty fast," Ritter said.

Joe Johnson, the bank's senior vice president and comptroller, will succeed Ritter as president. Johnson has been with the bank 18 years.

Ritter's banking career came about by a combination of happenstance and cold reality. Up until he left for Fargo to study accounting, the young Ritter spent most of his time working on the family farm, where he raised wheat, barley, oats and flax. It seemed the financial world and the agriculture world would have a tugof-war with him.

"I thought I was going to go more into the accounting field, but what I wanted to do was farm our family farm. It was quite small, and Dad recommended I look at something else," Ritter said.

A Christmas break visit to The First State Bank of Munich got the banking ball rolling for Ritter. A few months later, he was offered a job, and Ritter learned about banking, working nearly every job including teller, loan officer and in operations. Banking fit well with Ritter, who liked the positive results his bank has had on the community. He especially enjoyed getting to know the customers, mostly farmers.

"What I really liked about the loaning end was seeing someone getting going and doing well. A number of those who I've worked with have done very well," Ritter said. Ritter's former colleague and golfing chum, Arlo Maag, described him as a solid, honest banker.

"Overall, he knows banking because he started from the ground up, learning all aspects very thoroughly," said Maas, who worked more than 14 years at The First State Bank of Munich until Ritter succeeded him as president in 1991.

The First State Bank of Munich has grown to $70 million in assets from the $3.6 million it had when Ritter started. The bank today has 40 employees, compared with 12 from Ritter's early days, and is run by Munich Bancshares Inc., formed in the mid-1980s. Ritter is among its shareholders.

Always a farm lender, the bank is slowly growing consumer and commercial loan portfolios since opening a branch in nearby Devils Lake. It also has branches in Starkweather and Osnabrock.

Although he is retiring, Ritter will remain on the bank's board of directors. One reason for sticking around is he wants to watch the progress of projects he oversaw as president. He hopes the Devils Lake branch experiment succeeds, and will monitor the bank's automatic teller machine network.

The latter project was started three years ago, as the bank installed about 170 ATMs in eight states including North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana, Washington and Louisiana. (Watch for a story on the ATM network in an upcoming edition of Northwestern Financial Review.)

Staying on the board also will let Ritter lend support to his farming customers. They're really going to need it in the coming years, as Ritter described the area's farm economy as a "disaster." Four years of poor wheat and barley crops due to disease and weather problems have burdened farmers. Although crops are better this year, prices are too low, Ritter said.

Ritter added that he has seen too many farmers use up assets as they continue to work the land and hope for the best. Sometimes, they need a wake-up call.

"When you're in this business, you've got to tell things like they are. You've got to be a straight shooter and can't beat around the bush," Ritter said.

Banking will never leave Ritter's blood, but he plans to take things a little more slowly in retirement. Now, Ritter will have plenty of time for hunting, fishing, golfing and traveling with Bernetta, his wife of 37 years.

He'll also offer his share of upkeep work at the city park, which he was instrumental in starting in 1971 with its baseball diamond and tennis court. "I'll spend a lot of my spare time doing things there. I'll never be out of work," Ritter said.