Message from the President
J. Michael Romey,
President/CEO of Citizens National Bank
At Citizens National Bank, this is the time of year we are focused on establishing a 2013 budget. As the CEO it is my responsibility to lead this effort and offer some strategic suggestions. As many economists have expressed, there are a plethora of potential concerns that are confounding our decisions. Some of these include the Fiscal cliff, the European recession, the Federal Reserve’s additional monetary stimulus, who will be elected to lead our country and dealing with our long term budget deficit. It seems that this year there are more unanswered questions than at any time I can remember.
I had been considering how to plan for next year with a large degree of uncertainty until recently when I listened to Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, being interviewed on CNBC. In his straight-forward way, he pointed out to the reporter that the USA is still viewed around the world as the best place to invest capital because even with all our problems we still haven’t lost our lead in creating small businesses. Once again, I was reminded that what we do here at CNB as community bankers, supporting the majority of small businesses in our markets, is essential for our state and the country in creating more jobs and growing. I thought about how our bank focuses on
the needs of the families, businesses, and farmers; how our lenders are generally accessible to our customers on-site; how our bank officers are typically deeply involved in their local community affairs. I thought about how these qualities have all been successful attributes for our bank.
So, I have decided that we will continue to focus in 2013 on what we can control and not be too distracted by what others will need to fix. We will focus our attention on what we have always done well and that is to continue to develop our relationships with our customers. We will continue to expand our service and support and build buildings, and hire people and will continue our positive belief in the American entrepreneurial spirit.
