Oklahoma: A Story Through Her People
A full-color photography book showcasing Oklahoma paired with the histories of companies, institutions, and organizations that have made the state great.
A full-color photography book showcasing Oklahoma paired with the histories of companies, institutions, and organizations that have made the state great.
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In addition, Hill was named a finalist for<br />
Most Admired CEO in <strong>Oklahoma</strong> (2012);<br />
and Bank2 was named one of <strong>Oklahoma</strong>’s<br />
Top Work Places (2013).<br />
At Bank2’s first strategic planning meeting<br />
in 2001, Hill asked Governor Anoatubby to<br />
share his vision for the bank. “The board had<br />
been considering locating the bank in Ada<br />
or Ardmore, <strong>Oklahoma</strong>, and had hoped that<br />
it might grow to about $58 million in total<br />
assets after about ten years.<br />
“When Governor addressed the board, he<br />
cast a huge vision in comparison to that of the<br />
board, saying he hoped the bank would have<br />
a national footprint,” Hill recalls. “Less than<br />
eight years later, we had achieved his vision,<br />
and had made loans in forty-six states across<br />
the country.”<br />
Neal McCaleb was steering committee<br />
chairman for the bank’s formation. When<br />
McCaleb was appointed by President Bush<br />
in 2001 as Deputy Secretary of the Interior,<br />
he had to resign his position with Bank2’s<br />
formation steering committee. At Governor<br />
Anoatubby’s request, Tom Cole replaced<br />
McCaleb on the board, serving until he was<br />
elected to Congress about two years later.<br />
McCaleb completed his duties in Washington<br />
about the same time, and was named to<br />
succeed Cole on the bank’s board.<br />
After the board’s extensive efforts to find a<br />
bank name that could be trademarked, Hill<br />
thought of calling it Bank2, though he saw<br />
the “2” superscripted. “Each time I showed<br />
it to anyone with a math or science background,<br />
they read the name as ‘Bank<br />
Squared,’” he says. “I sure didn’t want that as<br />
our name, so we made the “2” very, very large<br />
and added the line, ‘Twice the Bank.’ That<br />
name met with immediate public acceptance,<br />
and now has a national trademark to go along<br />
with our national presence. I sometimes get<br />
asked if we are part of Bank One or BancFirst,<br />
I say, ‘No, they are half the bank, we are twice<br />
the bank.’”<br />
Because of Bank2’s conservative business<br />
approach, it actually flourished during the<br />
great recession that saw many others reporting<br />
large losses. This led to the American Banking<br />
Journal’s naming Bank2 as one of the top ranking<br />
community banks in 2009 and 2010.<br />
“The bank’s sixty-three employees care<br />
about the customers,” Hill says, relating the<br />
story of a customer whose cars had to be<br />
repossessed when they got behind on their<br />
loans. The borrower called to explain that his<br />
wife had terminal cancer and could no longer<br />
work. The high school-age daughter now had<br />
to get up to drive her dad to work, then attend<br />
class till lunch, at which time she drove home<br />
to help her mother, fix dinner, and pick up her<br />
dad at work. She then worked from 6-10 p.m.,<br />
only to repeat the sequence the next day.<br />
When the loan committee recounted this story<br />
to bank employees and asked for donations<br />
to pay off the family’s car loan, employees not<br />
only paid the loan, but also bought the family’s<br />
Thanksgiving dinner, in keeping with the bank’s<br />
mission statement, “Building Better Lives.”<br />
Bank2 sent two employees to help with<br />
relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy whipped<br />
through New Jersey and New York. These<br />
volunteers helped clean mud from houses,<br />
prepared and served meals to victims, and<br />
again embodied the bank’s mission statement.<br />
Employees recently donated over $60,000<br />
to drill water wells in emerging countries after<br />
hearing an estimate that 5,000 children under<br />
age five die daily from water-borne diseases.<br />
Bank2 joined an OKC nonprofit, Water4 to<br />
help eradicate this problem by providing safe,<br />
clean water. In January of 2014, two Bank2<br />
Above: Helping Native Americans with<br />
home loans.<br />
Below: Cleaning mud out of houses in<br />
New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy.<br />
O K L A H O M A P A R T N E R S<br />
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