By Grant Wishard
“We’re a coastal bank,” says Wayne Wicker, co-founder, chairman and CEO of South Atlantic Bank. “The market is distinct and requires a little difference, a different banker to be successful in these types of markets.” Wicker would certainly know what that difference is. He has served South Carolina’s banking needs his entire career.
From people person to people professional
Wicker grew up in Columbia, the capital of the Palmetto State. He graduated from The Citadel in 1987 and continued at the South Carolina Bankers School and the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University. Early in his career, he worked at several types of institutions, including regional, state, community, and correspondent banks.
Out of all that experience, the opportunity that sticks out decades later is the management training course at C&S Bank. Computers had green screens back then and suits were wide. Wicker remembers C&S’s training as a highly effective, career-starting experience that few institutions offer today. It started with customer service: “It was a lot of role playing,” recalls Wicker. ” ‘How do you enter a potential customer’s place of business? How do you find common ground and ask for the business?’ As a young person you don’t know.”
Wicker was always a people person, but C&S made him a people professional and then sent him to work as a bank officer in Myrtle Beach. Wicker married a Myrtle Beach native, started his family, and dedicated his banking career to the coast. The stage was set; someone just needed to raise the curtain.
At Anchor Bank, Wicker grappled with the chief credit officer, Bob DuRant. As a Citadel graduate and veteran, Wicker knows what it means to be broken down and built back up, but he says DuRant carried out his own demolition. “He broke me down to nothing and helped rebuild me in his own way,” Wicker remembers, laughing. He gave Wicker a lot of red ink and verbal “commentary.” But DuRant had the experience and respect to be a mentor. One day, Wicker and one of his future partners, both mid-career bankers, went quail hunting with DuRant. “He said, ‘It’s time for you boys to start a bank,’ and that was the beginning of it,” Wayne remembers.
DuRant’s words were like a starting gun, telling Wicker it was time to use the talents and knowledge he had accumulated over the years. He had “touched all the bases,” as he puts it in terms of how to take care of people and their finances. He had seen enough of the industry to know that he wanted to stay in community banking and had found the community that he wanted to serve. He and his partners raised $28 million in 90 days. Today, South Atlantic is a thriving community bank approaching $2 billion in assets, still expanding and even opening two locations within an eight-month period last year. South Atlantic is an undeniable success, but through the ups and downs, Wicker has been able to reference a framed sticky note from DuRant: “Wicker, you will succeed — Bob.” In the early days, South Atlantic could lend only $1.5 million per individual. Today, its legal lending limit is $30 million.
Staying close to customers
In hindsight, Wicker’s success along the coast makes sense. Places like Myrtle Beach, Charleston and Hilton Head are enormously popular, profitable destinations — for part of the year. They are also relatively small communities — for part of the year. Many banks run aground on the type of seasonality that defines Carolina’s coastal tourist economy. Community banking might seem strange in some of the most-visited, fastest-growing places in the country, but Wicker makes it make sense. He is rooted to the area and can speak to what it was like to be a visitor and a transplant.
A number of South Atlantic’s priorities reflect Wicker’s training. “I really like to see young students come to tour the bank,” he says, “Our main office is a two-story building with a large, typical bank boardroom and I enjoy going in to make us look approachable, instead of stuffy stereotypes that you know they’re scared of.”
South Atlantic Bank’s 12 branches provide a sensory, 4D-theater effect to their customers: the smell of salt air and the caw of ocean birds. Each location is on South Carolina’s coast, most within earshot of the rumbling tide.
If that tour leads students to start their career at South Atlantic, Wicker has a management training program modeled on C&S. Associates experience each role within the modern bank, giving them the same informed choice that Wicker had. “We can kind of tailor the program in any way, but you get the full benefit of learning what happens in a bank, you know, A to Z. So, it’s been very successful,” says Wicker, now in the mentor stage of life.
Part of Wicker’s advice to young people is that banking is a marathon, not a sprint. And even that metaphor might be too action-oriented. “It’s just listening,” he says, slipping into the mode of employee coach. “Don’t tell them what to do and then just walk away. It’s a partnership,” he says, whether it comes to dealing with personal accounts or other bank executives. Wicker is a thank-you note writer who is training associates who would prefer to text customers. That is antithetical to Wicker’s first value — listening — and his second, showing up. He and his wife have done every event under the South Carolina sun, including Ducks Unlimited, Rotary Club, local school events and the Miracle League, a baseball league for young people with disabilities. “That’s what being a true community banker is. We’ve just been involved in everything. That’s the lifeblood of our industry — being involved.”
This applies to people as well. Mickey Thompson became a customer of Wicker’s in 1994 when he started his first business selling jon boats. Today he runs a successful local marine and powersports dealership. “It’s been a pleasure working with Wayne all these years,” Thompson says. “When you walk into the bank, it still feels like everyone knows your name.” For Thompson, Wicker has been more than just a banker — he’s been a steady presence and supporter through every stage of growth.
Wicker is now serving as ABA’s treasurer, and he previously served the South Carolina Bankers Association and the South Carolina Board of Financial Institutions. Fred Green, CEO of the SCBA, has been Wicker’s colleague and friend for 40 years. All of these volunteer roles, Green explains, require someone who, if there were ever a conflict of interest, would do what was right for the industry, rather than what was best for his bank. “It takes a unique individual,” Green explains, “someone who has a lot of respect from their peers and competitors.” Wicker is that person, says Green. “These are labor-intensive roles that you don’t do unless you really want to give back.”
Green has yet to understand how his friend does it all. “Wicker’s number one priority is family, and he finds a way to divide his time to the bank, the community, volunteer roles and ABA. And he does it very effectively.” Eventually, Wicker expects one of his many ambitious hires will take his seat, but he says, “I still have some time left. They’ll have to pay their dues.”
In the meantime, he has more to give.
Grant Wishard is a writer in Washington, D.C.
