Passionate leadership

Northwestern Financial Review, Jan 15, 2001 by Olmsted, Monte

[banker of the year]

William Reiling is helping often-left-behind, urban customers through Sunrise Community Banks

The whirlwind in the business suit, briskly walking through the offices of St. Anthony Park Bank in St. Paul, Minn., is always recognizable. Heads turn and smile when employees see Bill Reiling, the bank's highwired, energetic leader; he's a man who has an idea a minute and little time to spare as he builds relationships among customers, employees, communities and his three banks.

Call him a banker on a mission - a carpenter's son and former "nail-hammerer" himself, who still likes to build things.

"We create people. We take them from the garage to the street. Somebody had to support somebody out of the garage, and that's a community bank," said Reiling, chairman of the $200 million Sunrise Community Banks, which operates three banks in the Twin Cities.

The 67-year-old Reiling is a passionate man, unafraid to pound his fist on a table to make a point, insisting on a non-discriminatory philosophy toward lending to people other bankers might consider high-risk. It's something he learned about early in life because he was among the overlooked.

Said son David, president of Sunrise's University Bank in St. Paul, "He grew up a poor farm kid, didn't have any money and has a strong philosophical bend to helping people who don't have a lot of money; people or businesses that normally get pushed aside by the general mainstream in terms of access to capital."

Among those benefiting from this philosophy include a number of small business owners, non-profit groups and even Minnesota Gov. Jesse "the Body"Ventura, who desperately needed a loan while running for office more than two years ago.

Reiling's intuitive sense to lead by example and follow the Golden Rule have earned him the respect and praise of customers and employees alike. His banks are known for their inclusive lending efforts, a willingness to help non-English speaking immigrants, as well as efforts that have helped to revitalize former drug-- infested neighborhoods such as St. Paul's Frogtown area.

These are some of the reasons Reiling has been selected North*Western Financial Review's Banker of the Year for 2001.

"He leads both by word and example. He has a value-based philosophy that says, `Doing right is not inconsistent with doing well,' so that focusing completely on the community in which the banks are located will create sales, profit and loyalty," said Rick Beeson, president of St. Anthony Park Bank, which at $100 million is the largest of the Sunrise institutions.

Added Dorothy Bridges, president of the $65 million Franklin Bank in Minneapolis, "If you look up the word `passionate' in the dictionary, you'll probably see a picture of Bill."

The Inner City Lender

Reiling is so confident his banks have the right formula on inner city lending, that he boldly declares, "We're going to own that position of leader in improving urban communities in the Twin Cities."

And his banks have been building that reputation ever since he entered the industry in 1984, buying Franklin Bank after a successful career owning Minneapolis-based Towle Real Estate. He added St. Anthony Park Bank in 1992, and University Bank followed in 1994.

These neighborhoods are filled with satisfied customers.

They include the private, non-profit American Indian Business Developwent Corp., a developer of commercial real estate that tries to attract business owners of all racial and ethnic origins to Minneapolis' East Franklin Avenue. The group owns six commercial blocks in the city's Phillips neighborhood-the poorest in the community.

Two years ago, American Indian Business Development obtained a $1.1 million mortgage through Franklin Bank in the development of one of those blocks that includes the Ancient Traders Market, said Theresa Carr, the group's executive director. The project, a mixed-use development building that includes retail and office space, was launched in December 1999 and met with some resistance.

"The project was hard to finance because commercial lenders look at income stream not the bricks-and-mortar, and they're looking for credit-worthy tenants," said Carr. "Some of our larger tenants are start-up companies, non-profit and ma-and-pa retailers. It takes a lender willing to take a little more risk, and Franklin Bank has been an incredible partner for us. The Reiling family is committed to inner city economic development."

To experience the diversity, one only has to walk through the neighborhood of Franklin Bank near downtown Minneapolis in one of the city's oldest communities. Within a few blocks, several languages and dialects are spoken. The primary ethnic groups are Hmong, Vietnamese, Somali and Hispanic in the neighborhood, where a number of Russians and Ukrainians also call home.

They are the people who make up a bulk of Franklin Bank's customers, a number of whom had never taken out a bank loan until setting foot inside Reiling's bank.

Sunrise Community Banks' success in inner city lending has led to outstanding CRA ratings from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Lending numbers have turned around quickly at the banks since Reiling took the helm. When Reiling purchased the "train wreck" University Bank in 1994, for example, only 14 percent of its loans were in the surrounding community. Today, that number has climbed to more than 80 percent.