Troy Campbell, CEO of Altoona First Savings Bank, describes how his bank shifted from transactional work to a "Difference Maker" culture where employees see themselves helping customers achieve dreams. He discusses the advantages of mutual banks with no external shareholders, the difference between management and leadership, and why faith matters for lasting purpose.
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America's bankers face a lot of challenges these days, and the best of them help us face ours. How do you keep a team inspired when dealing with regulatory uncertainty and rapidly changing technology? And how do you keep each team member engaged beyond the mundane daily tasks and understand that what a difference each of them makes, right, in the lives of the people they serve? That's just some of what we're going to tackle today with Troy Campbell on Walking the Walk.
Inspire, empower, and guide people to their very best. These are the people who are walking the walk. Your host, The original Sensei leader, Jim Bouchard.
Troy Campbell is the CEO of Altoona First Savings Bank and the chair of the Pennsylvania Association of Community Bankers, and he's been at it a long time. This is his 26th year at Altoona, and now he's sharing his wisdom and his experience with the members of his association. Troy, I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to working with your group. From what I understand, we booked quite a tour of Pennsylvania.
Yes, we have, I think, 3 regional meetings scheduled.
3!
Throughout the year.
Wow, that's cool. Absolutely, looking forward to it. Always meet good people at the community banks.
Yes, I agree.
There you go. Hey, listen, I want to start things off. I'm always very interested when I'm talking with somebody who's a leader of an association. You know, an association is a very interesting environment, isn't it? You're working with, often with individual organizations who may be, or at least they see themselves as direct competitors sometimes, right? How do you bridge that gap? Keep people working together?
I really believe that working within our association is pretty simple. We all have the same goal, and that is to serve our clients and make our communities better. That's what I found to be so exciting about being part of the community banking industry is that people have integrity and they really do have a focus on helping other people. We have a really unique thing here in Altoona in that we have 4 mutual savings banks, which is a pretty unique thing. And while we all compete, you know, for the same business in the most part, we really cooperate with one another as well and do what we can to make sure that we serve all the needs of our community.
You know, it's so great to hear that because there's so many parallels. I'm so blessed to be able to to share these ideas with the business community because most of what I share, I drew from my life as a martial artist, right? And that idea of your competitor making you stronger, that's why we have such a respect for our competitors. It's hard to get that message out. The community banks, I see it. We do a lot of work with community banks and credit unions and we see that spirit there, right? Not so much with traditional banks, and I badmouth them a lot, so I probably won't get a lot of work with them. We see, you know, the challenges are going on. So I want to cover that a little bit too, because, you know, all banking gets painted with this broad brush sometimes when you hear something like the Wells Fargo scandal, you know, and incidents like that. Is that something that you're facing at all? Or is that something that you can help people manage kind of bad publicity like that?
Yeah, I think one of the things that really helps community banks is the fact that we are truly headquartered within our community.
Right. You know the people, right?
You're part of it. Right. The people who are making the decisions actually are part of that community. When you get into megabanks, Wells Fargo, we'll say, is typically the easy target.
Right now they are, yeah.
They're making decisions out on the West Coast. And it's impacting people, you know, on the East Coast, and they don't really know the people on the East Coast. And so I really believe that community banking is just an amazing industry because we're really rooted into the communities that we serve, right, from the front line up to, you know, the board.
Now, there's a sneaky reason I was asking you that question and framing it that way, too. It's because When you're dealing with any sort of organization like that, I believe, you know, the disconnect with Wells Fargo, especially with that checking account pushing scandal there, you know, when you put people, even good people, in a bad environment, and you impose on them goals or quotas that kind of guide them down the wrong path, you know, that's a systemic problem, and that's a disconnect internally. And when I've seen organizations and studied organizations like that, I see the disconnect where there's a lack of human-centric leadership. Now, in reading a little bit more about your story, I knew we'd be singing in harmony, right? Because that's really, it seems to me, that's what you practice is truly human-centric leadership. You know, everything we're talking about here and how you connect with the people inside your organization to make sure they wouldn't even think about doing something like that, right? Most of them. I know we have a bad actor once in a while. We can't help that. But they should be rogues. They shouldn't be part of the system, right?
Correct. Yeah, I think there's a couple of things at play here specifically with Altoona First. And one is the fact that we're a mutual organization, which means we don't have stockholders, which means, you know, if I have an amazing board that really supports the whole Difference Maker campaign that I brought into the bank in 2018, I just became president of the bank in December of 2017. My goal with that campaign was really to help each one of our employees because banking can be very transactional. I really wanted our employees to understand that they're not just simply making widgets, but every time they're doing a transaction, they're helping somebody or some small business in our community achieve a dream.
Right, right. Exactly.
It brings purpose to everything they do. So that's been just an amazing shift in our culture within the bank, seeing people starting to believe that. Not believe it, understand it and realize that they make a difference. The other thing is our board has been supportive in allowing us to do things to really encourage our employees. We don't have goals. We don't have quotas for our employees. I believe that if we allow them to see the difference they can make, that if we have the right people, they're going to achieve without having the bank sit down and give them hard goals. The other thing is because we're a mutual, we don't have stockholders that are coming in and saying, "Hey, I only got 20 cents and I could have gotten 25 cents if you didn't do this." So we really try to invest back into our employees, encourage our employees, help them You know, understand what their goals are and their personal goals are and kind of stand beside them in that. And then we think that will allow them to better serve our customers and ultimately bring prosperity to our community.
I'm glad to hear you say that. And I don't know if Alex prepped you guys with this, but I don't like working for bad companies. I only like working with good organizations because I can bring a lot more value when we're singing in harmony, right? And so what you were talking about leads exactly to some of the Some of the stock questions that we'll cover in the workshops down in Pennsylvania, I'll ask people. And these sound like stupid questions. And sometimes the stupidest sounding questions are the deepest. They're the most profound because they cause us to look inside ourselves. And one that I always ask people in banking is, well, I ask everybody, but what do you do? And the typical answer that you get back very quickly often is, oh, well, we help people open checking accounts. We process loans. Depending who you're talking to. I manage XYZ, whatever the case may be. I said, no, no, no, what do you do? And you hit the nail right on the head. In community banks, right, you make people's dreams come true, right? You help us as small business people to have an alternative means of financing. You help people buy a home, not just a house, right? Isn't that it? But it seems to me too, in an organization like yours and what I'm hearing from you already, You know, people in the organization don't lick it from a rock. I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that it always has to come from the top down, but damn, it's sure great when it does, right? So I'm going to really put you on the spot, okay? One of the key things that we talk about here is not motivating, but inspiring. And I get the impression, and I've seen that, you know, alluded to in some of your— some of the writing about you. How do you inspire this idea that people are really connected with the community really doing something a heck of a lot bigger than just whatever their daily task sheet is telling them? I think it's a tough one, isn't it?
There's a lot of ways I can go with that, just because I passionately believe that and I want that to be my leadership style. You know, I'm very driven by my faith, and so I want everything that I do within the bank and outside of the bank to really be a reflection of my faith. And so people are so important to me. And one of the quotes that you'll probably hear a lot is, "It's about the people." And so I really think that the number one way of doing that is to be an encourager to people, to empower them. To allow them to make decisions, to allow them to make mistakes and to learn from those, and not to be heavy-handed with people. I think a lot of times, you know, I've seen management by fear styles and that doesn't work.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, I just think being an encourager, being a coach, and, you know, really helping people believe in themselves and the difference they make is the key.
Geez, you don't need me down there. You're preaching to our whole choir right there. No, it's great. That's absolutely great. And part of that too is that I believe in order to make this work, psychology is going down some interesting avenues these days. We have this assumption sometimes that human nature is generally positive. And well, the research is really bearing out probably not so much. We're at best pretty self-interested, and it takes a lot of discipline to be good. It takes a lot of work to be good. It takes a lot of reminders. And, you know, I— again, that's an imprint that I've taken from, from my martial arts life too. Discipline is a huge, uh, value to us, meaning, you know, the development and the cultivation of meaningful and purposeful habits, right? And that's what keeps us going in the right direction. But it does take encouragement, takes constant reminding, and it takes, uh, it takes leadership like what you're talking about. Now, on a functional level though, and here's where I think guys like you and I get some pushback, right? Where people say, "Yeah, but you gotta cross the T's and dot the I's. You've got to take care of the technical management functions." I say, "Sure, absolutely, right? You absolutely do." But the problem is, what is it, Admiral Grace Hopper, I quote her all the time. She said, "Management's about things, leadership is about people, and for too long we went overboard on management and forgot about leadership." And I really take that to heart. So, you know, help me out with this one. I'm looking for a kindred spirit here. How do we answer the critics when they say you're placing too much emphasis on the on the people aspect, maybe, and, uh, you know, maybe you ought to be a little bit more of a hard-ass from time to time. That goes back to your intensity and coaching thing. Maybe I opened a can of worms, I don't know.
I think that was typically with my kids, not others.
We're always harder on the people closest to us, that's for sure.
Oh my goodness, yeah, my poor kids. They've turned out fine.
I imagine they did, yeah.
Yeah, I think that especially in banking, right? I mean, we're under such heavy, heavy, uh, regulatory—
it could be a cold world, right? It's perceived that way anyway, right?
Yeah, it's, it's so heavily regulated. And so there is, there is a matter of, you know, crossing the t's and dotting the i's. Um, but I think that if the culture is built on crossing the T's and dotting the I's, again, it's going to come back to people are going to be robots and be working out of fear and probably not even understanding what it is that they're doing. But I believe that if you focus on the person and are able to, you know, have— I have great people in place, so they're able to, you know, help their team understand things. And as the person understands why they're doing what they're doing, and, you know, why this T needs to be crossed and why this I needs to be dotted, I think they, they'll do those things because they understand them and not because they're afraid of making a mistake.
That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, it's interesting because one of the greatest challenges we see in leadership study today is folks, their inability to deal with uncertainty, right, and challenges like that. And that's something we're constantly facing. And the only way to do that, the only way to develop courage, the only way to develop true confidence is by facing these challenges, right? By being exposed to areas where there's risk and there's danger for failure, making mistakes if you want to call it that. And yet, too many leaders are hesitant. Now, certainly you have to manage that and for a number of reasons, not just to protect the organization as a whole, right? But again, another— I could say this line, you know, a million times a day. We learned a lot in martial arts about the fact that If you bring somebody along too quickly, right, and you expose them to the inevitability of failure rather than the possibility of failure, you can really damage them, right? If you put them in a no-win situation, that can damage them. So you have to manage the risk. How do you personally, you know, how do you read somebody and determine, you know, how much risk should I give this person? What's your process for determining what they're ready for?
One, we do use some assessments to understand the person's personality and things such as that whenever we're looking at promoting people into new positions.
But those aren't enough, aren't they? Because that's one of the few— and it sounds like we're going to have a good time when we're together because— and we can argue and debate. I love that, as long as we do it respectfully, right?
Sure.
Boy, do I hate most of those assessments. But I know you go beyond that. So let's, let's take that as the— as the baseline. And what do you do above and beyond the assessments?
Well, Jim, if we're face-to-face and we argue, I'll be respectful because you're a black belt.
Oh, I'm a man of peace these days. I'm retired.
Yeah, yeah. No, I think the assessment is maybe a good tool to use. It may give some insights. However, I also understand, you know, there's times we've given assessments to people internally looking to a promotion and the assessment comes back and you realize they're just a bad test taker, or maybe they didn't understand the questions because the results come back and don't match up with what you know about the person. Yeah, you know, fortunately with Altoona First, again, we have a, a long tradition of really we try to promote people from within the bank.
Mm-hmm.
And so we have a pretty good feel for the people. Because we are relatively small, we're $215 million in assets, 5 locations, 48 total employees, and so the people work closely with one another. So as far as knowing how much to put onto a person and things like that, I don't know that we have it down to a science. It's probably more of an art form for us where we have open communication with the people. And I would say that probably historically we haven't actually given people enough. Um, and, and that's part of our culture change, is trying to give people a little bit more. And, you know, I think, you know, fire refines, and I think people grow, grow greatest under that.
So it is true, isn't it? I mean, we talk about courage as being an essential quality of leadership at all levels. You know, we're talking about leadership. We're not talking just about managers in the C-suite. People on the front line. It has nothing to do with rank or title or position of authority. We want leaders at all levels, right? So when you're doing that, right, you're trying to bring people along. And like you said, you want to test them under fire. But you also have to be sensitive to the fact, based on what I just said, right, that not everybody wants that position of authority, but they can be great leaders, right?, right? They can be great leaders on the front line by example, by sharing their experience, their wisdom with others. Are we in agreement there? And if so, how do you really do that personally? What's your— because I get the impression, we talk about management while walking around is the cliché, right? Am I wrong in guessing that you're probably that type of person? And I hate to even use the word manager with you. We'll get into that later. That's okay. No, manager and leader are two Two different things, and we've created the evil manager as a character in our story. So yeah, go ahead.
I'm not— I'm honestly, I'm not too caught up in titles.
So good.
Um, I do— I love, I love being with people. It's probably one of my biggest struggles right now is, you know, really getting the people who are next in step with our succession planning, getting them up to the speed that I know they're capable of running at and freeing me from a little bit more of the transactional side.
There you go, right? Yeah, exactly.
Getting more into the people side inside the bank. I do try to communicate with our employees often. I do walk around. As much as I'm able to. But I really view my role here at the bank as one of being a culture changer. And I know I need to be away from my desk to do that. And so—
Yeah, yeah.
That's one of our goals right now. So I can't say that we've been extremely successful. The individual who was the CEO before me was very much a transactional individual. His strength. And so I'm trying to kind of walk our way out of that.
No, and you know, and so people understand this message clearly too, there's, there's nothing wrong with that. You got to know thyself, right? And sometimes there's people in positions of authority that are more transactional. That's fine. It doesn't mean you can't learn how to be a better leader too. But some people are limited in that process. I'm being very honest about that. And some people limited especially by their own will, right? Do they want to change? Are they successful in the style that they're at? My only contention is that if you are highly transactional, to be the— to create the most effective culture, the most effective organization, then you better bring some people close to you who are better leaders, right, to help you and support you and really carry that. So let's get back to that leadership by walking around again too, though, and how much Because you went from a transactional culture, I'm understanding, to more of a human-centric one. Are you doing that? You're in that transition.
Yes.
So the pushback always, and this is interesting because people always want to know about the ROI. And I just wrote a blog that said screw the ROI. And here's why I said that. Of course you have to measure the effect, right? But for too long, and God, we've got so many, this is why I have no hair because I pulled all my hair out from reading these studies where sure, in the short term, That style can be highly effective. You can get things done. But over the long haul, to sustain success in an organization, damn, you better take care of people. You better start recognizing that your organization is nothing if it's not made up of its people, right? And organizations that ignore that— and we have a long list of them— fail inevitably, right? So how much of that is tied to the purpose is one question. And the other question I want to explore with it too because you talked about management by walking around. Do you see that? Did that cost you in the bottom line or was it during the transition or do you see that as a nice gradual curve up or somewhere in between? I don't know.
Yeah. Well, we had our highest revenue ever. We've been here since 1927. We had our highest revenue ever in our our highest net income ever as a bank last year. Some of that's related to just the interest rates and things like that. But I'm very much a proponent of surrounding myself with excellent people and putting people into their place of core competency. I'm a big follower of Andy Stanley and he had a series on authority versus core competency. It really impacted me in a huge way. I also— I do tend to have a long-term view of things. My view is that my purpose here at the bank is to strengthen this bank and to grow this bank and to position this bank for success going forward, not just for today. Mm-hmm. And so if I were going to, say, retire in 10 years, then my goal, the decisions I'm making today I'm trying to figure out what are the best decisions I can make today so that in 10 years, one, I hand off a bank to the next leader that is on an upward trajectory. And then two, what do I do today to prepare the leaders behind me to take that and keep running with it?
Oh, let's hit that one. Let's hit that one because that's one I get every, almost every workshop, especially working in C-suite. And I start talking about that. And one of the strategies that we talk about is train your replacement, right? Train somebody. The sensei is not measured by, you know, helping someone equal your skills and abilities, but by surpassing them is one of the old adages from martial arts, right? Or little fortune cookies that I like. Okay, so you're talking about You really are talking about training someone who's going to take your job, right? Yes. How do you reconcile that? Help people that struggle with that. I think it's a beautiful concept, but some people get a little unnerved by that.
Yeah, and I guess my personality and my mind can't understand that. You know, I, I don't, I don't want to badmouth somebody that has that.
Oh, go ahead. Yeah, we're helping them. We're not helping them if we're not, yeah, we're not being blunt, right?
To me, that's a security issue, and, and I guess that's a, you know, a personal issue. Um, my perspective is I'm in this position to, to help Altoona First Savings Bank, not to help Troy Campbell, and So even whenever I came in as president of the bank, and I had been here for 24 years, I guess, prior to that, if the board of trustees had felt that there was somebody outside of this bank that was able to better meet the needs for Altoona First going forward, would I have liked that? Maybe not. Would I have respected that and understood that? Yes, because this bank is much bigger than Troy Campbell. This bank is 47 other employees and this bank is our community. So that's really where my vision is, is our employees and our community. So I need to make sure I'm focusing on taking care of them, not necessarily taking care of myself.
It sounds to me like you would quickly find a next step, right, if that happened. Or, you know, that's another thing too. Sometimes internal to an organization, and believe me, all joking aside, I understand people's fears and I've worked with organizations where that fear is rational and very real. I didn't work with Disney during this transition, but I've had friends that did. When Disney came, it was quite a few years ago. I think this was either under Michael Eisner or the next person after him, and they were bringing in people actually from overseas. And they were, by edict, the people that were still in place had to train their replacements. And they knew it. They knew what they were doing. And believe me, that was not a good environment to be in, right? So I understood their trepidation. On the other hand, my response to that, and I've been challenged directly, you know, with that particular situation, I said, well, then maybe you're in the wrong organization. Because if you're constantly in the process of training people right, mentoring people, I'd rather say, to take your place, then there's bigger and better things for you to do, right? And hopefully within that organization. And sometimes, and I know I've encountered some executives who are at a point in their career where they don't care about moving up. There's probably no place up for them to go. But they see it as not necessarily relaxing in a negative sense, right, but to shift sideways a little bit. Maybe their responsibility becomes training the executive team, the senior executives, you know, that type of thing. I've seen organizations where someone will step to the side and become really kind of a full-time mentor, right, a Yoda to the next generation coming up. So that's really interesting and exciting. I don't know, are we on the same page with that?
Oh yes.
What would you do if they came to you today and said, Troy, we've got somebody else groomed for this position. What's your next adventure? Without getting you into trouble, right? I'm not saying you have your resume out, but yeah.
I'll tell you what, I've been with this bank since 1992. And I love this bank.
So you're the Tom Brady of Altoona. You're going to stay there.
Oh man, I love that. I will tell you, in central Pennsylvania, my car will probably be egged if I've been compared to Tom Brady. But you know, I do love Tom Brady. I love his competitive nature. And yeah, so, but you know, I don't know what my next step would be. I mean, people have talked to me about I don't see myself really retiring to a place of not working.
Yeah.
So people have talked to me about working with consulting and things like that. The only thing that I do know is that if my wife has anything to do with it, it will be somewhere warm, probably in Arizona.
I hear that. I hear that. Every year it gets worse, man. Well, let's go. We've only got a couple of minutes left. Let's go to a little bit different take on this. Tell me, because I'm really impressed By, you know, your commitment to mentoring and to bring people along. To me, I believe that is the probably most inspirational and effective trait for any leader. If people can dial into that, because if for no other reason, because we're not working alone, right? Part of our number one priority as leaders is to cultivate an effective group, a productive group. And you can't do that. These are people. You can't do that unless you're willing to mentor them and bring them along and inspire them and empower them. You're using all our keywords. It's great. So tell me, you must have, you don't have to use names if you don't want to, but tell me what you think is your best success story along those lines. Who was it that you took under your wing that really, really, you know, drove it to the end zone, as long as we're using football clichés today?
Well, if it didn't have to be within the bank, I would—
Oh, it doesn't, anybody. Yeah, we're just talking, you know, with you as a leader. Yeah.
Yeah, I would point to my family and not even necessarily to me as the leader but probably to my wife as the leader with my boys. I mean, they've all grown up to become very— I have a 26-year-old son who's a financial advisor in Philadelphia and just his passion and his ethic of work and his ability to relate to people is just amazing to me. His ability to ask questions and to communicate clearly with people is amazing. I have a 24-year-old son who is actually a police officer in Richmond, Virginia. He just has such a huge desire to impact people in a positive way and impact his community in a positive way. He saw law enforcement as a great opportunity to do that, right? And, you know, it's exciting because both those boys are married and have kids, and I can already see them really pouring these same things into, you know, my 2-year-old and 3-year-old grandchildren. Um, and then, you know, the kid that might be the most amazing as far as being a risk taker is I have a 20-year-old son who is in Memphis, Tennessee. Uh, studying commercial music.
And, ah, great.
He's— his band's been on Beale Street. And, you know, the cool thing is he, he walked into Starbucks in Memphis a couple days ago, and he walks in and his album is playing in Starbucks.
Oh man, I feel for him because I think that's— that was one of my pet— you can't see because we couldn't get the camera work, but my wall of guitars is right behind me. Okay. Yeah, that's great.
And if you ask him I think if you ask him why he does music, he likes to make people happy. He likes to connect with them. I have a 14-year-old daughter who is still at home and a work in progress, but that's been a big success for us and it's probably the one that I take the greatest pride in.
I know if you're listening, you can't see Troy's face, but I can. I'm looking at the camera and he's just beaming. You know, talking about his kids. And I got to tell you, if this is worth anything, from 30 years of working with kids, they don't lick it from a rock. And it takes, you know, the best come, best usually come from, from great two-parent teams. And so, you know, I hope you realize that. I know you credited your wife there, but it takes both of you. So that's incredible. That's impressive. Look, I want to hit one more thing before we wrap it up. And you've hit, you've hit this from several different angles as we talk today. And I'm sure, because I'm taking notes, I'm sure we'll hit this. I don't know if you're going to go to all 3 sessions down in Pennsylvania. I wouldn't want to subject you to that. It does morph, it takes different shapes depending on what people need, but I wouldn't subject you to hearing my constant dribble for 3 days in a row. But anyway—
I think I'd enjoy that.
Okay, good. I hope you participate. I'm going to draft you into the conversation. But you kept talking about purpose and you hit it on faith. And we're probably a little bit different in that area. Let's just say I probably have a much more challenging relationship with that world than you do. But I tell people all the time, we hit that idea of spirituality being so important. And I say it may be religious for people. It sounds like it is for you. But I also say to people, it may not be. It doesn't necessarily need to be. What I'm talking about when I'm talking about spiritual And I believe we really need to tie into three sources of energy, material, emotional, and spiritual. We need all three to make something happen. But the spiritual component is often a challenge. And really what I'm talking about is that sense of purpose that you kept alluding to, right? That we're part of something bigger than ourselves, that we're doing something that's important to others. So can you tell us a little bit more about it? It's obviously a big deal in your life and in your leadership. So why don't you talk a little bit more about that and how can you help leaders not just access that, because I think plenty of them do, but it sounds to me like you've got the ability within your family and within your organization to, you know, to inspire other people to tag into that sense of purpose too. Got any tips for people along those lines?
Yeah, you know, my faith is one that believes that Everything we do is really about eternal. And so, you know, I say I always look forward to, you know, if I'm going to retire in 10 years, I want to make sure I position people and this organization to be in the best place it can be in 10 years. But really, my greatest desire is to impact people for eternity. Based on faith. And so I feel if I come in here and I simply make this bank a better bank and I simply make— help people become better bankers or better people, that that wouldn't be necessarily a measurement of total success for me. But if I can impact people to have an eternal perspective, that would be to me the most successful thing I could do. And so for me, that's, that's specifically my relationship with God through Jesus. And like you say, other people have other views on spirituality, but that's really my baseline.
I wish more people— and again, we'll talk about this face to face. We probably have a lot of different perspectives on it. But having said that, the commonality of it is this, that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We have responsibility to the people around us and to the future. It sounds to me like you would have had a very good conversation sitting down with Ben Franklin and John Adams and some of those folks, right? I mean, people lose sight of the fact that as leaders, you know, there's the clichés, there's the elementary school textbook version of these leaders, right? But I think one of the things that impresses me so much is what you just said, that sense of legacy, that sense of the future, right? What's your contribution to people's lives? And what is that going to mean, not just for the next quarter, for even the next year, maybe 10 years, maybe forever, right? How long is that string going to last when you make a great imprint on somebody? And Troy, it sounds to me like that's what you're doing every day. I mean, I'll withhold— I've learned not to be judgmental and I'll withhold full judgment till I meet you in person. Sounds to me like you're a sensei leader in every good sense of the way we mean that word. So really appreciate spending the time with you. Any last words you want to share with people? And why don't you tell people also, just in case, you know, just a little bit about, you know, the Pennsylvania Association of Community Bankers and how people can learn more about that?
Yeah, the website for the PACB is— is how I'll refer to it— is pacb.org. We're an organization headquartered in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the purpose really is to support community banks. A large way is through advocacy and, you know, helping our both state and our federal legislators understand the impact of regulations on community banks' ability to serve communities. We do believe that we're the difference makers within a community. A lot of the larger banks take data, put it into a spreadsheet, and give you a yes or no. We want to sit down with people and say, "Tell us your story," and we want to hear a story. We will try to some way find a way to partner with you to make your story successful. PACB just does an amazing job. It's a small staff of 7 people, but they really believe in community banking. They're passionate about it. It comes through every day in what they do. We're making a big impact in our communities throughout Pennsylvania.
I can't say enough about you and what you're doing with credit unions and community banks. People always complain about they can't control this and they can't control that, but let me tell you, These are the folks that are serving you on the front lines. They're, they're part of your community, as Troy talked about earlier. They're not just— you're not just customers to them, you know, they're— you're part of their family. And I, I see that all the time when I work with these groups. Um, so support them if you want a true alternative. You, you know, you've, you've gotta, you gotta vote with your wallet too and do business with these organizations. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to coming down to Pennsylvania and, and working with you guys. Of course, one of the things we'll do with this program is make sure that folks that are coming to the workshops are able to listen to this and to hear you if they haven't met you before or haven't met you yet. Really appreciate your insights and your wisdom, and believe me, we'll work together because we don't believe that we're just working for people with the Sensei Leader Movement. We are unabashedly and actively recruiting you. You're already part of the movement now.. And our mission is, right, to develop and cultivate human-centric leaders, leaders like Troy. And that's who we're looking for. So Troy, welcome to the movement. I'll say that officially. And I look forward to working with you. I think we've got some great work to do together. Thank you so much for being part of this today.
Thanks, Jim. I appreciate it.
All right. You hang on right after the call. We'll say our goodbyes right now. Say goodbyes to the people that are listening. And we'll, we'll be back with you another episode of Walking the Walk. We got 3 or 4 really big ones lined up. So don't miss out. Stay subscribed. And of course, when you come to thesenseileader.com and subscribe, you'll get a free copy of the Sensei Leader eBook. Okay, talk to you soon.
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