Richard K. Yowell

During his 25+ years as a banker, Dick Yowell was twice CEO of community banks in turnaround situations.  In both cases, the answer lay in lending and credit management.  As CEO of Second National Bank in Culpeper, Virginia, Dick led an effort that:

• Designed and executed a recovery process for a troubled loan portfolio
• Reduced criticized assets, and
• Increased profitability from .54% of assets to 1.40%.

When he was CEO of the First National Bank of Columbus, Indiana, Dick assembled a management team that was successful in:

• Building a portfolio of small business loans that increased the bank’s loan-to-deposit ratio from 28% to 70% with no increase in criticized assets, and
• Improving profitability from .63% of assets to 1.40%.

During his bank management career, Dick served on the on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Bankers Association, was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Automated Clearing House Association and served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Community Bankers Division of the American Bankers Association.  He joined the ABA staff to establish the Community Bankers Division as a free-standing unit, with its own legislative agenda and responses to the changing political and economic landscape.

Dick left banking as a practitioner in the mid-1980’s to become a consultant.  He built a practice for his employer at the time in assisting troubled institutions under supervisory agreements, leading eight such engagements personally.  These engagements included:

• A $150 million community bank in the Southwest United States
• A $300 million East Coast bank
• A $500 million agricultural bank on the West Coast
• A $1.2 billion bank in the Southeast, and
• A $3.0 billion bank in the Northeast.

Other examples of his consulting assignments are:

• Redesigning the commercial loan risk monitoring function in a top tier Australian bank
  
• Managing the design phase of the installation of new commercial and consumer lending software platform for a major Saudi Arabian bank
  
• Developing and delivering training courses in relationship banking to small business lenders in a top-tier Malaysian bank
  
• Developing a problem asset management methodology and toolkit to assist troubled banks in Southeast Asia, and
  
• Leading revenue enhancement projects for top tier banks in the United Kingdom and South Africa.

He has published articles and delivered numerous training sessions on banking subjects for the ABA, BAI, RMA and various state banking associations.

Dick is a graduate of the University of Virginia and a U.S. Army veteran.  He and his wife Helen live in the Hill Country of Texas near San Antonio.  In addition to professional pursuits, they are full-time grandparents to six grandchildren.