Latest / The Ric and Dan Show / "I just needed to change the way I was doing it": Larry Barker of Machias Savings Bank

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"I just needed to change the way I was doing it": Larry Barker of Machias Savings Bank · The Ric and Dan Show

• 0:01
  (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) He's Rick Tyler and he's Dan Cashman.
• 0:04
  And I'm Larry Barker, CEO of Machias Savings Bank, and I'm on The Rick and Dan Show.
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  In Maine, we often hear, you can't get there from here.
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  These are the stories of the risk takers, the trailblazers, those who turn obstacles
• 0:17
  into opportunities every day and found their way to get there from here.
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  And today, they're on The Rick and Dan Show.
• 0:26
  You were recruited out of a blueberry field.
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  I was.
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  Ed Hennessey.
• 0:30
  How'd that conversation go?
• 0:32
  You know, it's a bit of a story there.
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  I raked for Ed, working so hard for that money.
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  Of course, he was closer to home, you didn't have to drive as far.
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  So I worked at a motel in town, 10 to 6 shift.
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  I own that motel now, but that's another story.
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  I love that.
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  So night clerk, it was my best job.
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  I mean, it was a card out back.
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  I thought it was 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
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  We were going to ask, though.
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  It was.
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  Yeah.
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  Card out back.
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  So you could, you know, if there weren't any customers coming in, you could sleep five,
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  six hours anyway.
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  So six o'clock, I grabbed my buckets, headed to the blueberry field.
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  So quarter of seven, I'm walking across the field.
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  Hennessey comes, Parker, where you been?
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  You know, everybody else has been there for an hour.
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  He said, I've been working.
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  What do you mean you've been working?
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  Well, I was at the motel from 10 to 6.
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  And so, you know, around two o'clock in the afternoon, I'd gather my buckets up and head
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  for my car.
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  Parker, where you going?
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  I mean, you can hear Ed, you know, now, I said, well, geez, I'm going to work.
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  What do you mean you're going to work?
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  Well, I worked the four to nine shift at Helens, and then I went to the motel and then I went
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  to the blueberry field.
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  And he saw me do that for, you know, a couple of weeks and decided maybe he was interested
• 1:43
  in working.
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  And so I think it was my work ethic that caught his attention.
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  And he approached me in the field toward the end of the season and said, hey, if you ever
• 1:51
  consider working at the bank, come see me.
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  And that was the extent of the conversation.
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  I had no interest in banking.
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  Never thought about banking.
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  I mean, I was interested in business and I respected successful business people.
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  Ed was a big figure in town, obviously, and really, you know, gained a lot of respect
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  for him in the blueberry field because the bankers would stop by once in a while with
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  their ties and ask him some questions.
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  And he was the only person in Washington County I knew that had a cell phone in his truck.
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  So I'd leave the door open.
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  That phone would ring.
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  He'd run for it.
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  And he'd answer that phone while he was on the blueberry field.
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  And so I was pretty impressed with Ed and his passion for customer experience and his
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  work ethic as well.
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  I think he had the whitest legs on the blueberry field with his black socks up to his knees.
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  And I mean, that was like every dad.
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  I was embarrassed for him, but, you know, so in a nutshell, that's that's that story.
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  And that was August of 91.
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  I went to see Ed a few weeks later, started at the bank in October of 1991.
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  He introduced me to my new boss.
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  My new boss said, you know what a mortgage is?
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  I said, yeah.
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  I went home that night and looked it up.
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  But Ed said, he doesn't know a thing about banking, but he's a hell of a blueberry raker.
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  Here you go.
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  And that was the start.
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  Do you think it was just the work ethic that he saw in you and said, I want that man on
• 3:01
  my team?
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  I really do.
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  Ed had an eye for work ethic.
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  I mean, he picked people off the Klan flats and, you know, the meat rooms.
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  And I mean, that's that's where he built his team.
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  I mean, his leadership team before me, one of them was a used car salesman.
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  My boss at the time worked for Patton.
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  You know, he was a he was a forester.
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  And so, you know, Ed was just always scanning for for talent.
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  When you say Patton, you mean the town, not the general?
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  No.
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  I mean, I mean, the it was called Patton Land Company.
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  They did a lot of development.
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  And this guy was a forester.
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  And so Ed would always be looking for for somebody that wanted to work.
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  Did you enjoy that style of work, raking blueberries and working at Helen's?
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  I mean, they're obviously two very different things, but did you did you enjoy those those
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  jobs when you had them?
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  The Helen's restaurant.
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  So my mother owned Helen's.
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  She started out in the dishroom in 78 when we moved down.
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  That's another story.
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  So that was a fill in.
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  I was going to school, you know, kind of between jobs.
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  And that was a bit of a fill in.
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  But that motel job, I kept that for a long time.
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  My wife made me give it up.
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  We got married.
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  I'd still be going.
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  I mean, yeah.
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  When you were at Helen's, did you recognize the blueberries that you'd raked that day
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  suddenly baked into a pie?
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  I didn't even want to look at them.
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  Really?
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  I mean, you know, the blisters on my hands and the aching back.
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  I mean, there's there's nothing like raking blueberries.
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  Can you eat blueberries now?
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  Oh, absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  I ate them in the field.
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  Yeah, for sure.
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  And that blueberry pie is still one of my favorites.
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  That's probably why Ed Hennessey was yelling at you.
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  It's possible.
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  Barker!
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  You had this blue around your lips.
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  He'd yell at you if you missed, if you missed something, you know, hey, you want to clean
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  these up back here.
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  So you kept the, I want to say motel gig, but let's call it hospitality.
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  You kept the hospitality gig there as you were working at the bank.
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  And how long did you carry that for?
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  Years.
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  You know, like I said, that was, you know, at the time it was, you know, I think my paycheck
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  was a hundred dollars, but I just, you know, it was, it was the easiest hundred dollars
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  I made.
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  We don't even have a night clerk at the motel anymore, post pandemic, of course, we figured
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  out we didn't need it.
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  But, but, you know, my uncle owned the hotel at the time and he, he had a night clerk for
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  20 years.
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  Wow.
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  The hands-on labor though, of the, the blueberry fields, there are people I know that just
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  love any type of hands-on labor, whether it be yard work or fixing stuff or raking blueberries
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  or picking potatoes.
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  Did you enjoy that work or, or do you, do you find yourself enjoying the, the office
• 5:24
  job and the customer service job and the leadership of the bank?
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  What I enjoyed about it, you know, I still enjoy physical labor, but what I enjoyed about
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  it most is the piecemeal and I was in control of how much money I was going to make.
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  So, you know, as opposed to the $6 an hour I made when I started at the bank, it was,
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  Hey, if I rake a hundred boxes, you know, I've got 300 bucks coming to me.
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  And so you, you really controlled your destiny that way.
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  It was a hard work.
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  It was a grind.
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  I grew up in it though.
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  My grandfather raked blueberries into his eighties and so, you know, we started doing
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  it pretty young and I mean, you were always going home for that first day.
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  I mean, that was, that was exciting.
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  I mean, you, and of course we bought our school clothes when I was, when we first started
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  doing it.
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  That's how we worked.
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  You made a reference a moment ago about moving to Machias.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think you were there when you were what, nine or 10?
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  10.
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  We moved to Machias when I was 10 from, from Bangor.
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  My parents were from Luback, grew up in Luback.
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  My father went to, into the military.
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  He was in Vietnam.
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  So I ended up being born at Fort Dix, New Jersey and it's a fairly well kept secret.
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  I think a lot of people wouldn't, wouldn't know that.
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  I think I, you know, grew up in down East Maine and been there all my life.
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  But Fort Dix, New Jersey, Connecticut for a short stint, and then to Bangor.
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  I lived up to Cape Hart for a while.
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  So when I was six, my father, who was an alcoholic and liked to chase girls, left.
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  And so my mother found, or her next husband, who also liked the bottle a little too much
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  and it wasn't the girls that were a problem, it was the gambling.
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  So he didn't have any money to pay rent.
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  So every six to eight months, we got a new bedroom and we moved to a new house.
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  So I think I went to seven different elementary schools in the greater Bangor area during
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  that period of time.
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  Even did a stint in Hudson, stint in East Corinth.
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  You know, we didn't know he wasn't paying the rent at the time.
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  We just knew we were going to a new house and, and you know, pretty young at the time.
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  But my mother finally kicked him out.
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  We moved to Machias.
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  My grandparents were in Machias.
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  And so that's where we, we moved to Machias.
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  She started out in the dishroom, ended up waiting tables, doing payroll, taking care
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  of other things and eventually bought the business in what, 87.
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  I wonder where you got your work ethic, but I think you just answered it for us.
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  I was fortunate.
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  You know, my aunts and uncles, two sets of aunts and uncles that were great mentors.
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  My grandparents were phenomenal.
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  My mother was a workhorse for, for years.
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  You almost kind of had to be though.
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  There was no other option other than to be a workhorse.
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  You know, I think it's a, that's a great question, Dan.
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  And I would say, you know, into, into my early twenties is when I really, when I met my wife
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  and then especially when I, when he started having children, I mean, I just really wanted
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  to provide a good life for them.
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  Financial independence was high on my list.
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  We didn't have much growing up.
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  My mother was on food stamps for a while, you know, during, during this earlier years in,
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  in the Bangor area.
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  So, you know, I always look forward to Christmas cause my cousin was going to get a new pair
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  of bean boots, which meant I was going to get his old ones and they were pretty good
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  shape those, those old bean boots.
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  So anyway, that was kind of what it was like for us growing up.
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  So you know, I, the only thing I could control was my work ethic and boy, you know, we, and
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  my wife was the same way.
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  She's a workhorse as well.
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  And so we were, we were a hell of a team and we went to work.
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  How did you not let it go too far?
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  How did you not reach burnout?
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  That's a, that's a great question.
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  I didn't not reach burnout.
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  I did reach burnout.
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  It's really interesting.
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  I read, read a book recently called Performance Paradox and you know, one of the concepts
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  in the book that he lays out is, is a chronic performance.
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  And that was me.
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  I mean, for let's, let's say decades, you know, first 30 years of my career at the bank,
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  it was on, always on.
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  And, and on top of that, you know, I was a great critic of myself.
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  And so, you know, it may be something to do with growing up.
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  I mean, we had, we had some, some traumatic events along the way.
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  So I think I developed this pattern of, you know, always trying to anticipate when the
• 9:29
  next shoe was going to drop and where it was going to drop.
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  And so, you know, the first three decades of my career, I had enough energy to get
• 9:36
  away with that.
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  You know, between the grind and the working and being on all the time, call it chronic
• 9:41
  performance.
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  Yeah.
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  And so about 30 years in, I was at lunch with my board chair, Bob Foster, who's just been
• 9:48
  a fantastic resource for me.
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  Great, great guy.
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  Great leader.
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  And so I go home at the end of the day, just having the energy left.
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  I was, I was done and that had been going on for a few years at that level of exhaustion.
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  And so I said to Bob, I said, I'm going to give you three more years.
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  I'm worn out.
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  Just don't want to grind, don't want to thrash like this anymore.
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  And Bob, he's taking this all in.
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  He looks at me very calmly and he says, you know, you're in charge.
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  And that dropped on me like a, like a bomb.
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  It just had a profound impact on me and not necessarily overnight.
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  But as I thought about that and reflected on that, I mean, it was just a defining moment
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  for me.
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  He was so right.
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  And, you know, so it was, it was at that period and he wasn't just right about the bank.
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  Sure.
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  I was the CEO of the bank.
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  I was in charge of the bank.
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  But I was also in charge of myself outside of the bank and I had never taken time to
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  exercise.
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  I just, I didn't have time for that.
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  I mean, we got to, we got to save that energy for it.
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  I didn't have enough energy for it.
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  I mean, we were going and we were going to be financially successful.
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  We were going to be successful in the career.
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  And so I really took that to heart.
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  You know, I heard something recently.
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  It was not changing is a choice.
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  And so, you know, Bob had, had shared his, his thing.
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  You're in charge.
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  And then I just started, you know, it was like a domino.
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  I started, you know, seeing and reading these different things.
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  I said, gosh, it's time to make some changes.
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  And so it wasn't necessarily that I needed to stop working.
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  I just needed to change the way I was doing it.
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  I needed to start focusing on doing the things that I enjoyed most and the things that were
• 11:32
  draining my energy, doing those less.
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  And so, you know, Bob's, Bob's, you know, advice as well.
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  Set it up the way you want it.
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  You're in charge.
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  So I started setting it up the way I wanted it.
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  Stopped doing some of the things that were draining for me.
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  Started taking time for myself on a daily basis.
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  So it was, it was a game changing moment.
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  What does that look like?
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  Taking time for yourself on a daily basis?
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  What is it?
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  We need to take notes on that for ourselves.
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  Okay.
• 11:56
  I know.
• 11:56
  For me, it's a pounded down a few bags of beef jerky.
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  Yeah.
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  Is that what you do?
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  That's good stuff.
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  I don't mind a little jerky now and then.
• 12:04
  Yeah.
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  I like a lot of it myself.
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  But what do you do for yourself though?
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  What are the things that you take time for?
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  You know, reading, learning, growing,
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  just not being on all the time.
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  I've always been a student of personal growth and development.
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  I mean, you can't name any books that I haven't read,
• 12:23
  any podcasts I haven't listened to.
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  I mean, I've just been hungry for that stuff my whole life.
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  So, T.J. Holloway was at a bank event recently.
• 12:33
  Great, good friend of mine.
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  He was an executive coach for me for quite a period of time.
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  And his message was, you got to get serious.
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  And I got serious about making some changes
• 12:43
  that restored my energy to a place
• 12:46
  that where I am today is enjoying leadership
• 12:48
  more than I have in my entire career.
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  I've got more energy.
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  And so, I take time for myself every day.
• 12:54
  We're up at five o'clock.
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  Five to six is coffee with the wife.
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  Six to seven, I'm in my man cave.
• 13:00
  20, 30 minutes of meditation.
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  Stretching, some would call it yoga.
• 13:04
  I call it stretching, you know, it's much cooler.
• 13:07
  Yeah, it's like men don't keep diaries.
• 13:09
  We have journals.
• 13:10
  That's what I'm talking about.
• 13:11
  You know, I go for a walk.
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  That's my best time.
• 13:16
  No more alcohol.
• 13:18
  And I don't have anything against alcohol.
• 13:20
  In fact, I love to have a few drinks with friends,
• 13:23
  but it wasn't good for me.
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  I mean, it plugged my sinuses, made my heart race.
• 13:27
  I didn't sleep.
• 13:28
  And again, I could get away with that from, you know,
• 13:31
  up to age 50.
• 13:33
  Can't get away with it anymore.
• 13:35
  You know, you gotta watch that energy a little closer.
• 13:37
  And so, I gave it up altogether and, you know,
• 13:39
  hired it for us because, you know,
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  I don't wanna be a prude.
• 13:43
  I'm not that guy, you know, but just wasn't good for me.
• 13:47
  So, I stopped doing that.
• 13:48
  And I would say, you know,
• 13:49
  all of these things together, Dan, compound.
• 13:52
  Not only compound to get it compound every day.
• 13:56
  And it's, you know, personal integrity to yourself
• 14:00
  and keeping the promises that you made to yourself
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  builds that integrity,
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  puts deposits into that personal integrity account
• 14:07
  on a daily basis, grows confidence.
• 14:10
  I mean, it's just,
• 14:11
  it really has compounded for me over the last five years
• 14:14
  and I'm in a much different place today.
• 14:16
  Any point in time when you were facing and seeing the grind,
• 14:19
  was your spouse saying to you,
• 14:21
  Larry, you need to make some changes.
• 14:24
  I gotta get you to slow down.
• 14:25
  I need you.
• 14:27
  I'm still saying that to her now.
• 14:32
  I mean, I'm telling you, you know,
• 14:35
  the first year we were married, we built a house in 1992.
• 14:38
  That winter we kind of changed by oil.
• 14:41
  I mean, so we went on this path for a long time
• 14:44
  and, you know, we get comfortable
• 14:45
  and then we need another challenge.
• 14:46
  I mean, we like to have something
• 14:47
  to get us out of bed in the morning
• 14:48
  and we thrive on it and have for years.
• 14:52
  So no, she's a workhorse as well,
• 14:55
  but certainly supportive of, you know,
• 14:59
  whatever I need to do to be in a place
• 15:02
  where I'm in harmony with myself
• 15:04
  and happy with what's going on.
• 15:06
  Fantastic.
• 15:06
  And the kids are all in line with that?
• 15:08
  Oh yeah.
• 15:09
  All seven of them?
• 15:10
  The seven, is that the number?
• 15:11
  There is seven.
• 15:13
  We're overachievers.
• 15:14
  I mean, you know, we covered that already.
• 15:17
  How many bathrooms are in that house that you built?
• 15:18
  Because, right, there are three.
• 15:23
  That's tight at times.
• 15:25
  But yeah, first three children biological,
• 15:28
  the last four adopted.
• 15:30
  My 19-year-old's from Guatemala
• 15:32
  and my 14-year-old was born in Portland.
• 15:36
  And then two girls joined us, what,
• 15:38
  a couple of years ago now.
• 15:40
  Ages, gosh, don't quote me on this.
• 15:42
  I have to use Outlook to keep track of birthdays
• 15:45
  because, I mean, it's too much for me.
• 15:47
  Like that holiday-a-day calendar,
• 15:49
  you get the same with the birthdays.
• 15:50
  You get one every day.
• 15:51
  That's right.
• 15:52
  It's good to see whose it is.
• 15:53
  They're 11 and seven.
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  And so the youngest, the two girls
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  and my 14-year-old from drug addiction scenarios,
• 16:00
  just nasty situations.
• 16:02
  So it's been a great experience for the entire family.
• 16:05
  Is that what drew you to adoption?
• 16:07
  What drew me to adoption was my wife's passion
• 16:09
  for wanting to do it.
• 16:10
  Okay.
• 16:11
  And she's the kind of person that, you know,
• 16:12
  if she was driving across the dike in the Machias
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  and there was a litter of puppies on the side of the road,
• 16:16
  she'd stop and take all of them.
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  So when she first brought this up, I'm like,
• 16:21
  okay, let's give this a year.
• 16:23
  And if you still want to do it, we'll consider it.
• 16:25
  A year went by and she was back.
• 16:28
  I mean, I think she had it on the calendar.
• 16:30
  And so-
• 16:31
  That calendar you mentioned just a moment ago.
• 16:33
  She must have had it on.
• 16:33
  It's another birthday.
• 16:34
  So, you know, it's interesting how things work out.
• 16:37
  I mean, my 27-year-old was six at the time
• 16:39
  and he had quite an accident, had a traumatic brain injury.
• 16:42
  So we were right in the middle of an adoption process
• 16:45
  when that was going on.
• 16:46
  So that was postponed.
• 16:48
  We ended up living at Eastern Maine for seven weeks.
• 16:50
  I slept on a little board next to the window
• 16:53
  and he's doing great today.
• 16:55
  He's, you know, fantastic.
• 16:56
  Yeah, but how are you doing?
• 16:57
  You're a tall guy and those boards in those rooms.
• 16:59
  It was rough.
• 17:00
  Yeah, I still suffered from that.
• 17:03
  But-
• 17:04
  You should try stretching.
• 17:05
  I'm on that, I'm on that, yeah.
• 17:08
  There's an ad on TV right now about adoption
• 17:12
  and it's one of those ads that just resonates with me.
• 17:15
  I can't explain why, but it's sort of an older child
• 17:19
  who is clearly not fully integrated
• 17:24
  into what everyone else is doing.
• 17:26
  But throughout the 30 seconds,
• 17:28
  you can see that child just sort of become
• 17:30
  more and more part of the family.
• 17:32
  And it closes by saying something like there is nothing,
• 17:36
  no feeling that can be greater expressed
• 17:39
  than the feeling of what you're giving to that child
• 17:42
  through adoption.
• 17:43
  And it's made me take a second look at that sort of thing.
• 17:48
  What has it brought to you to be able to be
• 17:50
  the father of four adopted children
• 17:53
  into your family in Eastern Maine?
• 17:55
  Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day,
• 17:57
  Dan, it's no different than the biological kids.
• 17:59
  You know, Braden, my oldest, was 10 months
• 18:02
  when he came to live with us.
• 18:03
  Finn was two weeks, you know, after he was born.
• 18:06
  And you'd throw yourself in front of a bus for any of them.
• 18:09
  So I just, I'm glad this comes up
• 18:10
  because I just, you know, anybody that's listening,
• 18:12
  I would just strongly recommend
• 18:15
  and hope to inspire folks to think about it.
• 18:18
  You know, after we adopted these two girls two years ago,
• 18:20
  I mean, DHS was calling us once a week.
• 18:23
  We, you know, the demand, unfortunately, is unbelievable.
• 18:27
  This drug thing that hit our nation was just tragic.
• 18:32
  And, you know, I think there's a lot of grandparents
• 18:34
  raising their grandchildren as a result.
• 18:37
  And it's really, it's tough.
• 18:39
  I feel bad for these kids.
• 18:40
  And the longer they're in the system,
• 18:41
  you know, the deeper the scars are.
• 18:43
  When you adopted the kiddos, when they were kiddos,
• 18:46
  how long did it take before they began calling you dad?
• 18:50
  Right away.
• 18:51
  And how did that make you feel?
• 18:53
  Oh, good.
• 18:54
  Great.
• 18:54
  Yeah.
• 18:55
  Yeah.
• 18:55
  And I had experienced that.
• 18:58
  Yeah.
• 18:58
  When I was six, I went from calling my stepdad, dad.
• 19:02
  And kids are so resilient
• 19:04
  and they want to have a dad, right?
• 19:05
  I mean, I always wanted to have a dad I could be proud of.
• 19:08
  Oh, I longed for it.
• 19:09
  I mean, so kids, you know, it's a real safety net.
• 19:14
  They fall right in very quickly.
• 19:16
  You always wanted to have a dad that you could be proud of.
• 19:18
  Are you the dad now that your kids are proud of?
• 19:21
  Oh, yeah.
• 19:23
  Yeah.
• 19:24
  Yeah.
• 19:26
  How do you take all of this,
• 19:28
  the work ethic, working three jobs,
• 19:32
  unless there were more.
• 19:33
  We stopped counting at three.
• 19:34
  There might be more.
• 19:35
  I'm not sure.
• 19:36
  Did you also deliver papers in the morning?
• 19:37
  Take a paper route away from my kid?
• 19:39
  I would detail cars.
• 19:40
  Yeah, I mean, there were.
• 19:41
  Let me try this Valley News Observer.
• 19:43
  Sure.
• 19:43
  With Lou Becker was saying,
• 19:45
  here, I throw these out to the.
• 19:48
  You have that in your background.
• 19:50
  You have an adoptive father in your background.
• 19:54
  How does this help you as the CEO of a bank
• 19:58
  relate to the person that is coming and saying,
• 20:01
  I got a dream, I got a business plan.
• 20:04
  I need someone to say yes.
• 20:06
  Yeah.
• 20:06
  Look, I'm that person that thinks anybody can do anything
• 20:12
  coupled with what I would coin is extreme humility.
• 20:18
  I'm really good at being a critic of myself
• 20:22
  and got really good at practicing,
• 20:25
  spending way too much time thinking about
• 20:27
  what could go wrong to the point of exhaustion
• 20:30
  as we've covered.
• 20:32
  So now look, I love inspiring people.
• 20:36
  I love inspiring at-risk youth and others as well.
• 20:40
  But every kid and probably every human
• 20:45
  needs that person who can look them in the eye
• 20:48
  and say, you can do it.
• 20:51
  Those four words coming from somebody that you respect,
• 20:55
  coming from an adult, really powerful.
• 20:58
  And we can't take it for granted.
• 21:00
  And at the end of the day,
• 21:01
  you should be looking for those people that need to hear it.
• 21:03
  Because I feel bad for those that haven't.
• 21:06
  I was really fortunate to have an uncle
• 21:10
  that was just one of those people.
• 21:13
  You could spend 15 minutes with him
• 21:15
  and you could leave feeling like
• 21:17
  you could conquer the world.
• 21:19
  And he did say those words to me.
• 21:20
  He said, you can do it.
• 21:22
  And I believed him.
• 21:24
  I believed that he believed in me.
• 21:26
  And it's a game changer.
• 21:30
  I needed to drink that in for a moment.
• 21:32
  I apologize for the silences on this side of the table
• 21:35
  as we're talking with you.
• 21:36
  Let's pivot to the bank and the success that,
• 21:40
  I know you're not alone.
• 21:41
  You're one of what, 300 or so?
• 21:44
  300, yeah.
• 21:44
  Right, and you mentioned humility just a moment ago.
• 21:46
  So if I call it your bank,
• 21:48
  you're probably gonna say to me, no, it's ours.
• 21:51
  Yeah, yeah.
• 21:52
  Well, I would start by saying when I got this job,
• 21:57
  I was interviewed by the press
• 21:58
  and they wanted me to talk about my success and all that.
• 22:03
  I said, oh no.
• 22:04
  So here's the humility was already,
• 22:06
  I'm only halfway up the mountain.
• 22:08
  And if I'm gonna be successful,
• 22:10
  I gotta carry this torch to the summit.
• 22:12
  And we can talk about that too, by the way.
• 22:13
  You mean the summit?
• 22:15
  If a summit exists, it's only there for a few seconds
• 22:17
  and then you just look off to your right
• 22:18
  and you see another peak up there.
• 22:20
  And let's go climb that one.
• 22:22
  But make no mistake, Ed Hennessey was the founder
• 22:25
  of the culture that we have tried to continue to evolve
• 22:30
  at Machias Savings Bank.
• 22:31
  I mean, that guy was a great boss, great mentor,
• 22:34
  great businessman.
• 22:36
  I mean, grew the bank from probably 30 million in assets
• 22:39
  in one location on Main Street in Machias
• 22:41
  to just under a billion when I took over.
• 22:44
  So it really has been an incredible journey.
• 22:48
  I would share, it has a lot to do
• 22:51
  with treating everybody with respect.
• 22:53
  20 years ago, I was in my uncle's gun shop
• 22:55
  and a retired banker was in there and he looked at me
• 22:58
  and he said, you'll never be a CEO.
• 23:00
  So this guy was the opposite of you can do it.
• 23:04
  He said, you'll never be a CEO.
• 23:06
  And he said, cause you're too nice.
• 23:09
  As it turns out, being nice is actually
• 23:14
  a pretty good strategy and I highly recommend it
• 23:17
  because it's been really good for us.
• 23:19
  We treat everybody with respect.
• 23:21
  And to your point, all of us are smarter than any one of us.
• 23:24
  Every single employee at Machias Savings Bank
• 23:26
  has an opportunity to contribute to our success.
• 23:29
  We ask for their opinion in many different ways
• 23:32
  throughout the year.
• 23:33
  We have the best places survey.
• 23:34
  Six months later, we have our own internal engagement survey.
• 23:37
  We don't want to let a year go by
• 23:38
  without keeping a finger on the pulse
• 23:39
  of what our employees are thinking.
• 23:41
  We go around the state with what we call table talks
• 23:43
  and we take employees to dinner
• 23:45
  and we ask them what we're doing that's stupid.
• 23:47
  We ask them what we're doing that's working.
• 23:49
  And we go through all of these questions.
• 23:50
  I mean, what's getting in the way
• 23:51
  of you providing great customer experience?
• 23:53
  What would you like us to see do different?
• 23:55
  And we inventory all those things
• 23:58
  and we take the top three and we go to work on them.
• 24:01
  Our culture has evolved as a result of those conversations.
• 24:04
  For example, family first philosophy
• 24:05
  is one of our culture standards.
• 24:07
  I mean, if your child has a little league game tonight,
• 24:09
  we're going to be disappointed if you're not there.
• 24:11
  If they have a game this afternoon,
• 24:13
  if there's a dance recital,
• 24:14
  we're going to pay you to be there.
• 24:16
  So family first.
• 24:18
  I think that shows in a few different ways.
• 24:20
  And one of those ways is,
• 24:23
  I know through Sutherland Weston and previous to that,
• 24:26
  we've done some work with Machias Savings Bank
• 24:29
  and the people that were always our point of contacts
• 24:32
  are still there, all of them.
• 24:34
  And I think that that employee retention
• 24:36
  speaks volumes for the culture at Machias Savings Bank.
• 24:40
  Yeah, our retention rates are about double the average.
• 24:43
  And again, I think it's a testament to just really,
• 24:48
  I mean, there's so many things that go into that.
• 24:51
  We've got a three page inventory of things we do
• 24:53
  to continue to manage our culture on an ongoing basis.
• 24:56
  It's a long list.
• 24:58
  We invest heavily in it and it makes a difference.
• 25:00
  I mean, we've been a top five large employer in Maine
• 25:04
  for 10 consecutive years.
• 25:07
  We were number two in this most recent.
• 25:10
  And we don't do that for the banner.
• 25:13
  We don't do it for the accolades.
• 25:13
  We do it for the feedback.
• 25:15
  And those surveys really are good
• 25:16
  and you get a lot of great feedback
• 25:18
  across the organization and we act on it.
• 25:21
  Also among the best banks in the country
• 25:23
  for a number of years in a row.
• 25:25
  So this American banker takes those same surveys
• 25:28
  from the best places survey
• 25:31
  and they compare them against the banks
• 25:32
  from across the nation.
• 25:33
  So I mean, we've been as high as in the top 10
• 25:37
  in the nation.
• 25:38
  I forget the number this year,
• 25:40
  but again, very proud of,
• 25:43
  look, I always say we can only raise the bar
• 25:44
  on customer experience
• 25:45
  as high as we've raised it on employee experience.
• 25:48
  Can't raise it any higher than that.
• 25:49
  So we've got to take care of our employees
• 25:50
  if we want them to take care of customers.
• 25:53
  Based on your background of achievement
• 25:54
  and driving yourself to achievement and to work,
• 25:57
  how do you not let that demon come back?
• 25:58
  Yeah, it's a great question.
• 26:00
  It's a great question.
• 26:03
  It's more of an art than a science
• 26:05
  because I love to put in a good day's work.
• 26:08
  I love the feeling.
• 26:09
  I mean, I won't leave Bangor tonight
• 26:10
  until eight or nine o'clock.
• 26:12
  So I've got an event to go to
• 26:13
  at the Cross Center this evening
• 26:15
  and I'll feel good,
• 26:16
  but you can't do that every day.
• 26:19
  Can't do it.
• 26:20
  You got to keep a finger on the pulse
• 26:22
  and you got to be mindful of it and aware of it.
• 26:25
  And so-
• 26:26
  Well, let me draw a parallel question to that.
• 26:28
  And that is the levels of success in the achievements
• 26:31
  the bank has made,
• 26:32
  best places to work, best bank.
• 26:34
  It would be very easy to see a year where,
• 26:38
  okay, we've got to win again.
• 26:40
  We got to achieve this again.
• 26:41
  We've got to earn this again.
• 26:43
  How do you not become a slave to that
• 26:48
  need for rhythmic success?
• 26:50
  Right, right.
• 26:52
  Well, I mean, you do that for 35 years
• 26:54
  and there's an element of that
• 26:56
  that's, you know, turns into adrenaline
• 26:58
  and you do thrive on it
• 27:00
  and it drives you and you enjoy it.
• 27:03
  I mean, I think the key is you got to have fun with it.
• 27:06
  And it can't, you know, you can't.
• 27:09
  It's interesting is if I looked back over 35 years
• 27:12
  and say, what would I do different?
• 27:14
  You know, I would like to say, have more fun with it.
• 27:17
  I could have been a lot less hard on myself
• 27:18
  and been just as successful.
• 27:20
  You know, I always had this subconscious feeling
• 27:24
  if I stop doing that, I'm gonna lose my edge.
• 27:27
  Oh yeah.
• 27:28
  You know, it's just next shoe's gonna drop.
• 27:30
  It's all gonna fall apart.
• 27:31
  It's gonna blow up and that'll be the end of it.
• 27:34
  But the more, the longer you stay in the game,
• 27:37
  the more experience you get,
• 27:38
  the more amazing people you get to surround yourself with
• 27:41
  and have conversations with.
• 27:42
  And I just have, you know, feel so blessed
• 27:44
  to have relationships with so many great business people
• 27:47
  across Maine and New Hampshire and gosh, beyond that.
• 27:51
  Over time, you develop an appreciation for the fact that,
• 27:54
  you know, every business person that I know
• 27:57
  has gotten good at making lemonade from lemons.
• 28:01
  There's gotta be lemons there.
• 28:03
  You know, you gotta, that's part of it.
• 28:05
  And you gotta stay the course
• 28:07
  and you can't beat yourself up
• 28:08
  and you look for the opportunity.
• 28:10
  You play the hand you dealt
• 28:11
  and you can't take it too serious,
• 28:15
  which, you know, I got pretty good at that over the years.
• 28:17
  When you first got the job that you have now,
• 28:20
  would you have had the confidence
• 28:22
  to feel the same way back then?
• 28:24
  Not at all.
• 28:25
  So instead of telling somebody you can do it,
• 28:29
  what do you tell somebody who is,
• 28:31
  let's say that you have a chance to have a conversation
• 28:33
  with a young Larry Barker, you're still young,
• 28:35
  a younger Larry Barker than you are today,
• 28:38
  what would you tell him?
• 28:39
  Well, I, you know, that's such an awesome question
• 28:42
  because I will sit here today and say,
• 28:46
  if you wanna be successful,
• 28:48
  you better outwork everybody in sight.
• 28:51
  But there's an evolutionary process.
• 28:54
  I mean, if you're young, I would say,
• 28:58
  you got a pretty good opportunity today to do that
• 29:01
  because a lot fewer people today,
• 29:04
  just by virtue of post pandemic and everything,
• 29:07
  people value their time a lot more.
• 29:08
  Young people want flexibility, they want freedom.
• 29:12
  If you're that person that wants to be successful,
• 29:15
  go to work and outwork everybody in sight,
• 29:18
  but invest in yourself every day.
• 29:20
  And I think you can still do that.
• 29:23
  You know, when I look back,
• 29:24
  I was in the office at six o'clock in the morning,
• 29:26
  every day, you know, for 15 years, but I wasn't alone.
• 29:33
  Ed Hennessey was in the office at 6 a.m.
• 29:36
  Wow.
• 29:36
  And so, if you rolled in at 6.30,
• 29:39
  he'd say, where you been?
• 29:41
  Parker!
• 29:42
  No, I'm telling you, we had a guy that lived,
• 29:46
  you know, 45 minutes out of town.
• 29:48
  He'd come in at 6.30 and it was, where you been?
• 29:51
  I felt bad for the guy.
• 29:53
  Gosh.
• 29:53
  So, you know, you gotta, you have to work.
• 29:57
  You have to outwork.
• 29:57
  I will also say.