After nearly four decades of service to the community, local banker Craig Smith has retired.

Smith, Mount Vernon Bank & Trust Company’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, retired Dec. 31 after serving the bank and its customers for more than 38 years.

“I think the thing I loved most about my time as a banker is the town and the culture we’ve had at the bank,” Smith said. “I had a great tag team partnership with president and CEO Dave Ryan, with his focus on the community and mine on the finance and operation of the bank. Dave and I didn’t always agree on every decision, but we made those decisions with the bank always in mind.”

A 1981 Lisbon High School graduate, Smith started his banking career in 1985 in Marengo, after earning a degree in agri-business from Iowa State University earlier that year. The local area called him back in December 1986 as Smith was hired by then bank president EJ Fordyce to join Mount Vernon Bank as an assistant cashier. That was the beginning of a career that saw substantial growth and technological change in the community banking industry.

Smith said that opportunity to come and work at the bank in his hometown was one he appreciated.

“Thirty-eight years of loyalty and leadership at one business doesn’t happen very often,” said bank president/CEO David M. Ryan.

Ryan praised Smith’s career: “Craig Smith has been a key component of bank operations and bank management for nearly four decades. He has led a solid fundamental community banking model that ultimately has been of significant benefit to the Mount Vernon-Lisbon business and agricultural community. Our ability to perform well in a competitive marketplace is due to Craig’s steady and dependable hand, along with his technological and operational savvy, all of which have been of great benefit to our customers, staff and shareholders.”

Smith’s career at the bank started in general banking and grew to include several roles through the years, including bank compliance and managing the bank’s first actively used computer systems in the late 1980s. Lending responsibilities and supervisory roles followed as Smith continued his banking education, graduating from the Iowa School of Banking in 1993 and the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Colorado in 1999. This background earned his spot as a key part of the bank leadership team and becoming part of the bank’s management succession plans.

One of the biggest changes that Smith noted in his decades long career has been technology and regulatory environments that banks have used.

“When I started in banking, computers weren’t very common place,” Smith said. “Now, computers are an integral part in banking processes. Regulations have also increased.”

As the bank grew, so did Smith, as he was elected to the bank’s board of directors in 2002 and selected to co-manage the bank in 2005 as its executive vice president and cashier. Over the past 20 years of Smith’s executive management, bank assets have nearly tripled from $62 million in 2005 to $182 million today.

Smith and his wife, Jean, plan to remain residents of Mount Vernon during retirement, and Craig will remain on the boards of both the Mount Vernon Bank and Trust Company (chairman) and Mount Vernon Bancorp (executive vice president).

“I plan on using more of my time in retirement chasing some of my other interests, like bicycling,” Smith said.

As to what he is going to miss most, Smith said it’s working with the staff at the bank.

“Just the energy that we have at the bank is something I’m going to miss,” Smith said. “I used to be one of the younger guys at the bank, and we have such a great staff there to fill the roles.

“The plan for me retiring has been in the works for a while now, and I have great confidence in the bank’s financial situation and future to step down now.”

Additional reporting contributed by editor Nathan Countryman