Josh Frantz, vice president and market business manager with First State Community Bank, explains what services the bank offers at the Tuesday morning Village Square Association Meeting at the Mexico Area Chamber of Commerce.

Mexico's Village Square Association, which works to support business in the downtown Mexico area, is starting a new program for 2020. Each month at its meetings, the VSA will highlight one business and its leadership.

The January featured business was First State Community Bank. Josh Frantz, assistant vice president and market business manager for the bank, explained his role with the bank as well as services offered by the bank.

Frantz's main role at First State is business development. "It's changed a lot in the last seven years since I've been there," he said.

His role also helps with business services such as payroll, and he is the property manager of the bank's building since the Mexico branch is the only First State location with tenants inside its location. "We've spent at least $100,000 or more [to the building]," Frantz said.

He highlighted the bank's vision statement following the description of his duties. The bank wants to "grow stronger communities by helping people and organizations achieve and protect their financial success," he said.

First State's parent company First State Bank Shares is privately held and has the bank, an insurance agency and financial management company, Frantz said.

"I'm a past president of the Jaycees and still am really involved with that. I'm on the Mexico Chamber board and also the membership chair on Rotary. A lot of my time is business development and spending time in organizations, helping them get their name out there and grow our community," he said.

First State was founded during 1954 in Farmington. The company has no plans to open branches or services outside of the state of Missouri. The largest community with a First State branch is Columbia.

"It's pretty much the biggest city we'll be in. The only reason why we have those bigger cities is because we did buyouts for a couple of banks. Our location was a nine bank purchase from Bank of America," Frantz said.

The central Missouri market has nine branch locations — one in Macon, two in Moberly, one in Mexico, and three in Columbia, one in Boonville and one in Marshall. Because the bank has a wide range of services it has two presidents.

Frantz highlighted an offer the bank currently is offering to the community. The bank is giving a $100 incentive to people to move their banking accounts to First State. The only requirements are a $500 direct deposit within 90 days and 15 debit card transactions per month.

"Every bank pretty much offers the same products and services, but one thing that makes us stand out more than anybody else is our customer service. I'll put that up against anybody," Frantz said.

cdunlap@gatehousemedia.com

Default No false no cdunlap