First Sentry Bank started off small in a corner office on Eighth Street but quickly grew to become one of the largest locally owned financial institutions in West Virginia.
By James E. Casto
HQ 88 | WINTER 2015
From a modest beginning 18 years ago, Huntington’s First Sentry Bank has rapidly grown to become one of the largest locally owned financial institutions in West Virginia.
First Sentry, a West Virginia state-chartered bank, competes in a crowded regional market that includes big banks, other similar-sized banks, West Virginia’s largest thrift institution and several credit unions. Yet, despite such challenging competition, First Sentry’s main office at 823 Eighth St., based on total deposits as compiled by the FDIC, is the largest banking office in Cabell County.
First Sentry was organized in 1996 by veteran Huntington banker Bob Beymer, who remains chairman of the bank’s board of directors. At age 86, Beymer still reports to the bank each workday morning, shunning the elevator and taking the stairs to his third-floor office.
“I figure when I can no longer climb the stairs, it will be time for me to retire,” he says.
Beymer’s banking career spans an amazing 65 years. A native of Ripley, West Virginia, he began working at the Bank of Ripley in 1949.
Asked if he had to start at the bottom at the Ripley bank, he smiles and says, “Actually I started on my hands and knees. I had a wide variety of duties and one was to take care of the bank building. That included doing something about the ugly wax buildup on the building’s floor. My wife and I got down on our hands and knees to strip it away.”
Beymer came to Huntington in 1959 to join the former Security Bank and ended up spending nearly 25 years there as its president. He retired from One Valley Bank in 1986, roughly three years after Security was acquired by One Valley. “They didn’t seem particularly upset to see me go,” he says with a grin.
The story of First Sentry began, Beymer relates, after he and Huntington businessman Marshall Reynolds made an unsuccessful effort to buy another local bank.
“The deal fell through when the bank’s principal stockholder had second thoughts about selling. It seems he had learned how much taxes he would have to pay on what we were going to give him for his stock,” Beymer says.
Abandoning their idea of buying a bank, they resolved instead to start one.
“They saw a need for a new community bank and, boy, were they right,” says Geoffrey S. Sheils, the president and CEO of First Sentry Bank for the last 13 years.
Beymer was joined on First Sentry’s original board by Jeanne Hubbard, a bank consultant; Robert L. Shell Jr., chairman of Guyan International; Joseph Williams, president of Basic Supply Inc., and S. Kenneth Wolfe, a Huntington physician.
While holding no formal position with the bank, Marshall Reynolds has acted as a valuable consultant to First Sentry over the years, Sheils says.
Drawing up plans for a building, the new bank purchased a corner lot at Eighth Street and Ninth Avenue, the long-time home of Dwight’s, a popular drive-in restaurant. Sheils describes the corner site as “ideally located for residents of Huntington’s Southside and Southeast Hills.”
Beymer and the bank’s other founders set a goal of selling $6 million in stock to establish their new venture. Shares were priced at $25 each, with a minimum purchase of 100 shares.
“Actually, it ended up that investors bought about $800,000 more stock than we had planned to sell,” Beymer says.
After raising the necessary capital from a private stock offering, the new bank spent its first 20 months operating from the renovated Dwight’s building. It moved into its completed building, a three-story modern facility built adjacent to the former restaurant building, on June 8, 1998. The Dwight’s building was then demolished.
Sheils, a graduate of the old Huntington High School and Marshall University, wasn’t on hand the day First Sentry first opened its doors. He joined the bank a few months later after holding various positions in commercial banking at the former First Huntington National Bank. He took over from Beymer as First Sentry’s president and CEO in 2001. A CPA, he has more than 30 years of community banking experience.
He characterizes First Sentry’s initial business plan as a slight departure from that of other local banks.
“We largely cater to closely held businesses, but we also provide personal mortgages, auto loans and such,” Sheils says. “I think we got off to such a good start because Mr. Beymer, Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Shell observed that the newer, bigger banks that were in the community due to acquisitions or mergers at the time were treating the small and closely held businesses in a way that they weren’t accustomed to. Those businesses have been our bread and butter since day one, and we are most appreciative of their business.”
“Just think about this,” Sheils continues. “In 1996, we started with zero loans, and today we have a portfolio of more than $360 million in loans. And more than $270 million of that is in business loans. In Huntington, West Virginia, that is not a small amount.”
The bank also has about $72 million in mortgages and $14 million in installment loans, he says.
“You know, I could quote numbers to you all day,” Sheils says, “but I don’t think the story of our success is about numbers. It’s about the strong relationships we have developed with our customers, staff and board of directors. Our staff works together like no other I have seen. We have assembled an experienced, talented group of bankers who don’t care who gets the credit as long as the customer is taken care of. I think our customers notice the culture that has been developed at First Sentry, and I am proud to work alongside every one of our employees.”
Four of the bank’s original organizers – Beymer, Shell, Williams and Wolfe – remain on the board of directors. More than a dozen of the community’s professional and business leaders have joined them.
