With major growth in assets, increased market share and significant expansions into northeast Ohio, ERIEBANK is showing no signs of slowing down. Since its inception in 2005, this locally grown bank is quickly becoming the go-to bank for businesses throughout the region.
Expanding the Footprint
When ERIEBANK President David Zimmer first set up shop, he knew from day one what his main objective had to be — to help people. His goal was to create a banking environment where a team of highly skilled local professionals could work closely with the businesses and people in their region to make their dreams come true. “We’re local people helping local people,” explains Zimmer. “Living and working in this community, you have a good idea of what is going on. We have a lot of local knowledge and we know how something we do affects our communities.”
ERIEBANK has used that local knowledge to grow from a one-man operation to creating more than 100 jobs in five counties across two states — getting help along the way from Pennsylvania-based CNB Bank. “Management at CNB had the forethought and vision to invest in our community,” says Zimmer. “We used that capital to grow and keep expanding. With each expansion, we continue making significant investments in the communities we serve.” The most recent of those investments is the opening of ERIEBANK’s first full-service branch office in downtown Ashtabula in February 2017.
Along with the opening of the Ashtabula office, ERIEBANK also officially completed its merger with Lake National Bank and its two offices located in Mentor, Ohio. According to Zimmer, it was ERIEBANK’s successful community banking model and like-minded philosophy on service that made the merger an attractive deal for Lake National Bank. “Just as we do here in Erie, in Ohio we empower our employees to do their job,” he says. “They are local, they know their communities, and now with ERIEBANK’s capital backing, they have even more lending capacity to continue to help northeast Ohio grow.” By expanding its footprint to include Erie, Crawford and Warren counties in Pennsylvania, and Ashtabula and Lake counties in Ohio, ERIEBANK has grown to more than $800 million in assets in just 11 short years.
Read more in the May 2017 edition of the Business Magazine.
