First Bank Hampton’s Bruce Harris reflects on career ahead of retirement

After more than three decades in banking and agricultural lending, including the past 27 years at First Bank Hampton, Executive Vice President Bruce Harris is retiring.

Harris grew up on a farm south of Coulter and graduated from CAL Community School District in 1979. After leaving farming in 1988, he drove truck and was later offered a job with the USDA’s Farmers Home Administration in 1990. He later entered community banking at Liberty Bank & Trust in Dumont before joining First Bank Hampton as vice president of lending in January 1999.

Harris says one of the biggest changes he’s witnessed during his banking career has been the rapid advancement of technology and the increased convenience it has brought to customers.

“In the beginning, in Dumont, I’d get my own notes ready, would do Dictaphone, and the gals would come and take the tape recorder and type the file comments, and I could type my own, using something called a typewriter,” Harris says. “We would type up a lot of the bank forms, and they were very short and very simple and very direct. Today, they’re much longer, very in-depth. I’m from the generation that I like the customer to come in, sit across the desk from me, sign the document, I shake their hands, give them their copy of the note. So I think that’s one of the biggest changes. In the beginning, when a customer would call me, they’d leave me a sticky note on the desk. Now they can call on my direct line, my cell phone, they can email me, they can text me. So we’ve become much more accessible in a variety of ways.”

While banking has changed significantly over the years, Harris says the people he has worked with have remained the most rewarding part of his career.

“We’ve had a lot of customers that have moved out of the area and they keep banking with us,” Harris says. “They like the relationship and it is not just a customer loan officer, it’s a relationship. I’ve had a lot of these customers dealing with me. I’m now dealing with the grandpa, the son and the grandchildren are dealing with me. So they have grown up and grown with me and that’s pretty flattering and humbling. You get invited to the weddings and the graduations, you go to funerals. It’s not just a business, it’s a relationship business that we’re in and that’s probably the hardest part for me to see sunset is I’m not gonna see a lot of these folks as often as I used to.”

Although retirement marks the end of his full-time banking career, Harris says he plans to stay active while enjoying more time with family.

“I’m going to remain as a Kiwanis member,” Harris says.” I’ve been past president two different times. I like the group. I like what it does for the kids in the communities that we serve. And more importantly, I’m going to remain on the board of directors here at the bank. So I’ll still have my hands in the management of the bank on day-to-day stuff. So I’m going to stay pretty closely tethered to the bank in the future.”

The public is invited to a retirement open house to celebrate Bruce Harris’ career on Thursday, July 30, from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at First Bank Hampton.