Having the opportunity to be your IBA Chairman for 2025 is both an honor and privilege that I don’t take lightly. Thank you to my predecessors Jamie and Ben, and everyone who came before them. Thankfully, you guys didn’t set the bar too high!

A special thanks to my best friend, Amanda, for keeping me in line, and an amazing senior management team for supporting me through even my craziest ideas. And most importantly, a big thank you to Amber and her amazing staff. We are blessed to be partnered with such an amazing association.

While we will continue to be your one-stop shop for industry-leading education, communication and government relations, my goal for my term this year will be to unify our focus with one mission and one vision (almost credit union-like), and that is to promote community banking. INDIANA community banking.

I want everyone to have the resources that I was so blessed to have these past 16 years, and that’s the best network of bankers in the world. Bankers like Pat Glotzbach, Brad Monts and Mark Schroeder, who paved the way for my career. Paved the way for a knucklehead like me who would have never made it without this group; who gave a 29-year-old reformed ex-examiner the confidence that we could get through the Great Recession and eventually thrive! I want us to be that group for the next generation.

And the best news is that if I completely screw this up, one of the smartest bankers I’ve ever met will take over next year and clean up my mess! Dave Findlay – thank you in advance.

Thank you, members, for all you do to advance IBA’s efforts in advocacy, education and product-and-service offerings, ensuring that we can continue to serve the Indiana banking community well into the future.