Bank encourages staff to become involved
Published in the Feb. 19 – March 4, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
Susan Black, Pinnacle Bank President and CEO
For Pinnacle Bank’s President and CEO Susan Black, bigger is not always better. The community bank has just three locations and focuses on small- to medium-sized business clients in the region. Black wants Morgan Hill residents to understand what it means to bank locally, that depositing money with the bank lets it put dollars into foundations and provide other benefits to grow our community.
“I’ve done the big banks and I’ve done the community banks and I think it’s really the community banks where we can be close to our clients,” she said. “We can make decisions that make sense. And the local decision-making is great. That’s what our clients want from a community bank. They want to be able to come in and look you in the eyes and ask, ‘Can we do this?’”
The idea for Pinnacle Bank was conceived about 10 years ago when the banking landscape was changing with major corporate banks swallowing up each other and growing into massive institutions. Two of Pinnacle Banks founders were certified public accountants and when their business customers kept telling them, “We really want a local bank to be the fiber of our community,” they took it took heart.
Sixty founding investors put in $20,000 each in seed money to start the bank in 2006.
Because Pinnacle Bank’s headquarters in Gilroy on the corner of Fourth Street and Monterey Road was undergoing a major renovating project at the time, its first office to open was in Morgan Hill in a modest business condominium center along Butterfield Boulevard. A Salinas branch became its third office.
An important part of Pinnacle’s business philosophy is to be highly active in the local community, helping out nonprofit organizations as well individuals who need help, Black said.
“We are really involved,” she said. “We encourage all of our employees to be involved in the local community and I think that’s what makes a community bank different, just to be so much a part of the community.”
Pinnacle is so prominent with its community activities that it recently received the Spice of Life Large Company of the Year Award from the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce. The bank was presented with the honor at a Feb. 8 gala at the San Juan Oaks Golf Club in Hollister.
“That was in recognition of our community involvement,” Black said. “We’ve put in thousands of (volunteer) hours. I think last year it was around 1,500 hours of volunteer time, with 40 employees.”
Bank employees during the winter holiday season “adopted” seven families in the South Valley through the Community Solutions nonprofit organization and three families in Salinas through the Boys and Girls Club. The families worked through these organizations to put together “wants and needs” lists and Pinnacle staff then gave of their own money to provide them with all the items on their lists.
The bank is also active in higher education endeavors, providing funds for philanthropic foundations at both Hartnell and Gavilan community colleges.
Although Pinnacle has a strong presence in Morgan Hill, because it is still a relatively young bank it is still gaining some traction in the perception of the public, Black said. The bank is involved with the community’s Chamber of Commerce, every year holding a networking mixer at its Morgan Hill branch to acquaint people better with what it offers local businesses.
“I think we’re perceived favorably, but not everyone knows about us,” she said. “I do think those people that are really interested in banking locally understand what that means. It means their dollars deposited with us are reinvested in the community instead of being shipped out of the state or out of the country…. We see our communities’ success really as our success. The more our communities thrive, the more our bank thrives.”
