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badly affected. “I don’t like what I’ve seen happen to our state.” Though business could be better, local bankers are happy to be in the Midwest, where they’ve escaped the wild fluctuations of the housing market, and in Springfield, where government, medicine and agriculture are more steady than manufacturing. “In spite of the national recession, this is a good marketplace,” Wise says. “I thank my lucky stars I’m not in Detroit,” says McCord. “Even here, the recession hasn’t been fun, and there are a lot of worried people. But it is a very good time to be in Springfield. We’ve been incredibly wellreceived.

We’ve stayed profitable every year. And 2009 looks like it will be a good year.” A time of economic dislocation presents many challenges to banks of all sizes, and some banks with weak assets and bad loans on their books may not survive. Nationwide there have already been nearly as many bank closures in 2009 as there were in all of 2008. But for banks with strong assets and balance sheets, in crisis there is opportunity. “There are a lot of banks, including ours, that are willing to move on good acquisition opportunities,” says Wise of UCB. “We just experienced a very good year in 2008,” he says. “We plan on having a good year in 2009.”

Contact Fletcher Farrar at [email protected].