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Copyright 2009 Insight Publications. Reproduced by permission. For website use only.

time P H OTO G R A P H B Y
s cott e h l e r s / IMAGE S T U D IO S for I n s i g h t

Bob Atwell
Nicolet National Bank,
founded in 2000 in Green
on why people trump numbers
Bay, was one of a few I love to read, it kind of fuels
banks in Wisconsin to my thinking and gets my imagination
going. I really believe that ideas matter,
accept Troubled Asset Relief that they do drive our actions. I actually
Program funds. Chairman think if you really think deeply about
and CEO Bob Atwell says what you hold to be true, and try to
order your actions around that, those
his bank did not need TARP ideas really matter. Sadly, I think a lot
but accepted it as a good of people go through life without really
move for shareholders. He reflecting on that.
sat down with Insight Editor I’ve been in Wisconsin banking,
specifically in Northeast Wisconsin
Margaret LeBrun to share dealing with customers here for over 25
his take on what went wrong years. There’s a way of doing business
in the banking industry. around here that is very personal, very
long-term oriented, a very mutually
supportive way of doing things.
I would not have gone through
the brain damage of starting a new
organization if I didn’t believe there was
something fundamentally wrong with the
direction of our industry. I think it was
a little harder for people to understand
that in 2000 when we started the bank
than it is today. If you look at the state
of the banking industry today, it should
be very obvious to every living soul that
there are very fundamental problems
with what’s been going on in banking,
and in particular, with the way that banks
have been thinking about what their job
is. Our organization didn’t get started
because we thought everything was fine.
We thought there was a crisis in business,
a movement in business toward the
depersonalization of commerce.
You’ll hear this expression over and
over again, “Don’t take it [continued] »

w w w. i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m July 2009 • Insight | 17

 face We thought there was a crisis in business, a movement
time in business toward the depersonalization of commerce.
personal.” You know, lending and
borrowing money is an intensely
personal activity. As banks, we really
need to understand and respect the
people we’re dealing with, and think
deeply about what it is they are trying to
accomplish – can we help them do it –
and can we do so profitably. We look at
profits as the result of, not the purpose
of our activity; it’s the result of our
activity when it’s done well, and when it’s
the human person that’s at the center of
what it is we’re doing.
When I’m explaining our organization
to people that aren’t familiar with Green
Bay or myself, I tell them we had a kind
of a radical insight into what a successful
business model could be like in banking,
and we took this transformational model
and put it into practice.
Our model is we try to gather
deposits from people we know and we
lend that money out to other people we
know, at a somewhat higher rate, and we
use the difference to cover our expenses
and provide a return to our shareholders.
That’s it. When did that become a radical
way of doing things? But obviously, it is.
If you’re entering into a business
venture, if you can’t explain it in simple
terms at a level that a reasonably curious
teenager can understand in a few
minutes, it might be more complicated
than it ought to be.
We are one of the minority of banks
that participated in TARP (Nicolet
received a $15 million investment from
the treasury) because we believed that
having extraordinarily strong capital
at the good banks was an important
component of restoring stability to the
industry. It’s costing us about 8 percent
after tax equivalent, on a tax equivalent
basis. We took it because we believed
in its purpose as it was expressed to us,
but we also took it because we thought it
would enhance our shareholder value.
A lot of that’s changed. There
are a number of provisions being
implemented with respect to TARP that
were not part of the original contract,
which we would not have accepted had
they been up front when we signed the
deal. We are growing the bank, but the
truth is we would not have needed the
TARP to do that at the level we are.
We are a commercial bank; 75
percent of our business is businesses’
borrowings and deposits. We’re
adding new customers but we’re also
experiencing this healthy normal
shrinkage of our customers’ borrowings
during slow times. We’ll see the real
financial fruits of our new relationships
and the customers we’re adding when
the recovery comes.

Copyright 2009 Insight Publications. Reproduced by permission. For website use only.

18 | Insight • J u l y 2 0 0 9 w w w. i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m