2 community banking leaders, Kevin Lewis and Brian Bialik, set to retire | Along The Way

Two leaders in Portage County’s community banking scene will retire at the end of December.

Kevin Lewis, CEO of Portage Community Bank and one of its charter executives, steps down Dec. 28.  Brian Bialik, chief lending officer of Hometown Bank who developed Hometown Bank’s commercial lending division, retires Dec. 29. Brian has been with Hometown Bank for 22 years.

Kevin grew up a backyard neighbor to Rick Coe in Ravenna and joined Rick in founding Portage Community Bank. Kevin had been a star producer wherever he had worked:  Second National Bank in Ravenna, now part of Society, Huntington Bank in Kent, and Chase Bank in Akron, which was where Rick was employed when the idea of starting a truly community bank became the mission both men decided to pursue.

Their team of six executive officers went out and raised $5 million by selling stock to local purchasers.  They placed $4 million in the bank and opened for business with no customers in 1998.  One of their winning strategies was convincing depositors to invest in the bank. Portage Community Bank quickly took off.  I can remember attending stockholder meetings early on and coming away amazed at how quickly Portage Community Bank was growing.

During a recent conversation, Kevin said each office is performing very well and that each office is successful within their markets.  He stated that Kent has an $88 million deposit base while the Cuyahoga Falls office has $53 million and Rootstown $34 million in deposits.  The largest deposit base is in Ravenna, where Portage Community Bank’s headquarters are, with a deposit base of $356 million.  Kevin said the asset size of the bank is nearing $500 million.

Kevin has always been involved in the community in a positive way. For instance, when Rick Coe chaired the United Way Board, Kevin chaired its campaign and raised more than $1 million. His ongoing dedication to the community has brought positive changes through the years.  He said Portage Community Bank intends to remain local.

"Part of our strength," he said, "is that decision-making remains local."

Kevin said some of his best memories of his career will be the friendships he has enjoyed with Portage Community Bank’s employees and customers. He and his wife, Sue, intend to winter in their home in Estero, Florida, but remain active in Portage County.  Their daughter resides in Columbus and their son in Broadview Heights. Kevin will continue to connect as a Portage Community Bank Board member.

Connie Bennett, a founding executive officer with Portage Community Bank, will succeed Kevin as CEO.

Brian Bialik started his career as a securities analyst for an institutional advisor and then worked for Key Bank and Bank One, larger regional banks.  He was hired in 2001 by Hometown Bank’s then CEO Howard Boyle to develop its commercial lending division. Boyle wanted to broaden Hometown’s banking repertoire to include lending to businesses.  Hometown Bank until then had focused on home mortgage lending as a more traditional savings and loan.

Under Brian, the commercial lending department has grown and now numbers three lenders and three analysts.  I remember Brian telling me when he started at Hometown Bank that its participation in the community agreed with his sense of what banking could be.

"The bigger regional players centralize lending decisions to a one size fits all,” he said. “I like that as lenders we deal with our clients face-to-face and get to know them as people.”  His leadership in commercial lending has helped Hometown Bank’s grow into an institution with approximately $300 million in deposits.

Hometown Bank’s central office is in Kent on North Water Street.  Its Ravenna office is in historic Riddle Block No.1, the community’s signature building on the corner of East Main and South Chestnut Streets.  Hometown Bank’s Brimfield office is on State Route 43, immediately south of the intersection with County Highway 18.

Brian said he and his wife, Rhonda Richardson, a retired Kent State professor with emeritus status, plan to continue to reside in Kent and will be able to visit their daughters, one in Pittsburgh, the other in North Carolina.

A good athlete, Brian, starting as a 7-year-old, played soccer for 59 years, some of them professionally which involved touring with teams in Europe.  He and Rhonda are ambitious bicyclers who undertake bicycle excursions of more than 250 miles during a week’s time.  They have a bicycle outing planned for Florida and another for Amsterdam this coming year.

He and Rhonda have nearly always made their home in college towns which offer recreational and cultural opportunities they enjoy.  Brian likens the mind to a parachute saying, “They work best when they are open,”  He said the ideas one finds in college towns are stimulating and said, “Kent State’s campus is like a community within a community.”

He has been active in Kent Rotary, is a Paul Harris Fellow, served as Kent Rotary’s president in 2009-2010, and served several other years as the club’s treasurer.

David E. Dix is a retired publisher of the Record-Courier. His next column will appear Jan. 7.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Portage Community Bank's Lewis and Hometown's Bialik retiring