October, 2007

To all of our neighbors,

What does a tomato have to do with banking?

As a banker for thirty years, I’ve never started a letter to a member of my business community with a reference to a tomato, but the parallels are there all the same.

Think about a fresh, homegrown tomato. Just minutes or a few hours after it’s picked it’s on your sandwich or in your salad. It’s terrific and makes the rest of the meal that much better.  Now think about a tomato that gets trucked in from somewhere else. Just not the same thing. Tastes kind of like plastic; looks a little contrived.

There’s the connection… a homegrown bank is a lot like a homegrown tomato. It’s 100 percent real, 100 percent focused on the community it serves. Howard Bank is like that fresh tomato. We are locally owned and exclusively devoted to supporting the small businesses of Howard County. Our attention is right here, on you, all the time. We have a team of dedicated relationship managers who you will get to know personally and, just as important, who can offer you products and services that are every bit as sophisticated and leading-edge as the big, national bank chains – but with local flavor.

There’s a lot of uncertainty around town. Several local banks have been swallowed up by big banks. Some of the customers of those banks have already started to feel the effects of out-of-town ownership and the lack of attention and personal service that is often the unavoidable result. Several business owners have already made their way over to us.

We invite you to do the same.

At the very least, call us or stop by a branch to learn what the homegrown advantage means. We offer Business Online Banking, Hands-On Connection (our Remote Deposit Capture service), Business Debit and Credit Cards, our proprietary Hands-On Evaluator, and we’re an SBA Express and Preferred lender. The products are here. The services are here. And, without a doubt, the homegrown commitment is here. We’re a “hands-on” bank, something that is only possible because our headquarters, and our
decision-making,  is in the same county as the people we serve.

Local makes a difference. Homegrown makes a difference. We hope to have the opportunity to prove it to you.

 

Sincerely,

Mary Ann Scully
Chairman, President, CEO
Howard Bank