Starting in the 1940s up into the early 1970s hundreds of thousands of Appalachians moved north. The coal business went from a manual business (digging by hand) to a mechanical process (machines dug the coal). The mechanization, along with some other economic factors, left folks unemployed and looking for jobs. They moved north to work in manufacturing plants in the mid-west.
For those who remained in Appalachia, a regular event was the “summer visit” of your distant cousins who came back with their parents to the mountains for family gatherings. It was an interesting mix of culture, language, and perspectives.
One aspect of the annual visit was taking your cousins (we called them flatlanders) up into the mountains and hollers of your favorite playing spots – swinging on grape vines and building forts from tree limbs and leaves. Cold water creeks that we had dammed up to made small swimming ponds.
The journey to these sites could be strenuous. Growing up in the mountains, you learned the “mountain walk” – leaning forward with your weight as a counterbalance looking for tree limbs to help you climb the steep slopes. Our cousins often tried to walk the mountain the same way they would walk on flat ground. This led to spills and slides back down the hillside and us waiting for them to attempt the climb again.
After a while (including complaining and kidding and some cousins giving up and going back home) you would reach your spot. Sometimes it was the top of a mountain with a view that was beyond gorgeous. From there you would “ride the ridge” walking flat land for miles and exploring the mountains (our cousins liked that part of the trip).
The change of Banking to Fin Tech is much like the challenge that our cousins faced. Many (if not most bankers) got used to walking on flat ground. In other words, the “ground of banking” was pretty much the same as in the 1950s – build offices, open them, and then people came to the bank. That has since changed dramatically. We must adapt how we do the “banking walk” to go into the future.
Any climb can be hard, especially when the “climb” is to a higher and newer place in the banking world. Sometimes we need to be reminded how far we have come in making this transition. We also need to understand that we have a way to climb and it will not be easy to reach the “new view of banking”.
But PVB is committed to getting there and the new view will be awesome and reflect our commitment to be the best community bank we can be.
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“Letters From Leton” is a blog series comprised of the weekly updates that Leton Harding – President, Chairman, and CEO of Powell Valley National Bank, shares with the Bank’s team members. These newsletters are full of uplifting anecdotes and intriguing insights that are applicable beyond the Bank, so we want to share them with you.
