10 minute read
Chairman of the Board Jim Cargill
OF THE BOARD
THIS LEGACY BANKER IS LEADING OPPORTUNITIES FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL, EVERY COMMUNITY
Arvest’s Jim Cargill
photography by Jason Masters
TALK TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE WORKED WITH, OR FOR, JIM CARGILL AND YOU WILL UNDOUBTEDLY HEAR MANY OF THE SAME THEMES. HIGH ENERGY. HARD WORKER. GOOD LISTENER. GREAT COMMUNICATOR. FUN. JOVIAL. EMPATHETIC. One former Arvest Bank associate commented, “He’s a connector – always trying to connect people to work together.” As the new chairman of the Arkansas Bankers Association (ABA), as well as the incoming chairman of the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, his ability to connect people to work together is of utmost importance.
Cargill has been in leadership for Arvest in Central Arkansas since 1999, after beginning his career with Arvest as a commercial lender in Rogers in 1985. This was followed by stops in Bentonville, and Bartlesville and Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Some would say Cargill is the epitome of the Arvest culture. He has been accused of wearing the trademark blue Arvest name badge on his pajamas while sleeping.
But to really understand what makes Jim Cargill tick, you must travel back to his banking roots before joining Arvest.
A FAMILY LEGACY
He grew up in Lewisville – a town with a population of slightly more than 1,200 situated halfway between Texarkana and Magnolia in Lafayette County.
When, or more appropriately, if, people in Arkansas think of Lewisville, they most likely think of Burge’s Pit Bar-B-Q and Ice Cream restaurant, and their famous smoked turkeys and hams. Thanks to Lewisville High School’s open campus policy, Cargill said, “I pretty much lived off of Burge’s Pepper Bellies (a Frito pie-ish meal made in a Frito package) and Smoked Turkey sandwiches…probably four or five times a week.”
But while he has fond memories of Burge’s, when he thinks of Lewisville, it’s family and banking that come to mind first. Cargill is a fourth-generation Lewisville banker. His great grandfather chartered First National Bank of Lewisville and his grandfather and father both served as president of the bank. In hindsight, it would seem Jim was destined to be a banker.
In reality, he spent most of his youth working with his father on the family farm growing cotton and raising hogs. Cargill still remembers the first time he considered that banking might be in his future.
“One summer my dad and I delivered a load of cotton to the local cotton gin where he received a check for his load. We went to the bank to deposit it. Because we were hot, sweaty and stinky, my grandfather invited us to the back door of the bank. When he opened that door, I got hit by a blast of cold air and man did that feel good. That’s when I thought maybe there was something to being a banker,” he said.
Of course, by that time he had already been greatly influenced by watching how his grandfather ran the bank and, more importantly, how he interacted with people in the community.
“He was very smart and very kind, and I admired him greatly,” he said.
By the time Cargill went off to the University of Arkansas, he went with the idea of being the next generation of family bankers and got his degree in finance and banking. He returned home and began his banking career in 1979.
Six years later, he was offered a job in Rogers with First National Bank & Trust, the local Arvest affiliate before all the affiliate banks took on the Arvest name.
However, between the time he accepted the job and when he actually left the family bank, Cargill learned a valuable lesson about the importance of hard work.
“Once I knew I was leaving I developed a bad case of ‘short-timers syndrome.’ I was slacking off, coming into work late too many days. At that time, my former band director from school, Charles Colquitt, had come to work at the bank. He had always been someone I admired and appreciated, partly because he was a good enough band director to have helped me get a percussion scholarship,” Cargill said. “Well, one day a few weeks before I was scheduled to leave, I came strolling in at 10:30 and Charles pulls me aside and tells me how the cow ate the cabbage. Says that I’ve only ever worked for family and that what I need to understand was that out in the real world you don’t ever get to take recess if you’re going to be a reliable person who has a successful career and makes a lasting impact. His words really stuck with me.”
That lesson became immediately valuable as Cargill began his career at Arvest.
“At the Rogers bank, we had 6:30 a.m. loan committee meetings twice a week, and when I went to work for Burt Stacy in Bentonville a few years later, we had a standing weekly meeting that started early and Burt would lock the door ten minutes before the official starting time. I mean, seriously, if you weren’t at least ten minutes early you were considered absent,” he recalls.
Cargill still gets to work early because as he says, “There’s a lot of work to do and there are a lot of opportunities to serve our customers and our communities that we might miss if we’re not working hard.”
A TRADITION OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
One of the key lessons Cargill picked up from watching how his family ran the Lewisville bank was that community service should be the primary focus of a community bank. His grandmother Bessie, who he describes as, “the mastermind behind the bank’s success,” taught him how to interact with people.
“She would find out where people were coming from and what they needed in life because then she would know how she, and the bank, could help them,” he said.
This lesson was driven home again soon after Cargill arrived at the Bank of Bentonville. Being in the same town as the bank’s founder, Sam Walton, meant frequent contact. His very first face-to-face encounter with Mr. Sam has stayed with him more than 30 years.
“Sam walked into the bank for a meeting, saw me and came over. He said, ‘Jim, I’m Sam Walton. I hear you’re our new loan manager and just wanted to meet you in person.’ Then he looked me in the eye and said, ‘So tell me what you’re doing today to take great care of our customers and our community.’ That told me in no uncertain terms where my focus needed to be,” Cargill said.
Maybe that’s why Cargill’s schedule is consistently filled with volunteer work and positions including, to name just a few, Rotary Club, UAMS Chancellor’s Circle, Little Rock Air Force Base Community Council, Fifty for the Future, Big Dam Bridge Foundation, The Downtown Little Rock Partnership, Economics Arkansas, Our House and The Academies of Central Arkansas.
PHOTO: Jim and his wife, Kathleen, have been married for 38 years. They reside in Little Rock and have two adult children, Kelly and Ben, and grandson, Thomas. Jim enjoys bicycling on the River Trails around Little Rock and spending time with family and friends on the beautiful Lake Ouachita.
“I’m involved in a great number of worthy community and economic development organizations, but that’s really not unusual for bankers in Arkansas. You can talk to just about anyone in bank leadership in this state and they will have a similar list of community involvement,” he said. “That is, in my opinion, one of the strengths of the Arkansas Bankers Association. I think one of the keys is making sure that younger bankers understand the importance of community involvement. The better we can make our communities, the better it will be for banks. So, while we do it because it’s the right thing to do, we also do it because healthy communities lead to healthy banks. It’s fundamentally important to our industry that we be active and involved in community endeavors that help our communities.”
Cargill also sees and appreciates the same mindset with Arvest chairman Jim Walton. “Jim is so supportive of his team’s community efforts. He makes sure that we have the resources needed to support our communities and is always encouraging us to roll up our sleeves and get to work on worthy community activities. That support is so appreciated by everyone in the organization.”
And by everyone, he literally means everyone.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL
A major emphasis for Cargill in his leadership role at Arvest and with the ABA is to provide equitable opportunities for women and minorities in banking. This passion is another part of the legacy from Lewisville.
You see, while the men in the family held the titles of president, CEO and chairman, what Cargill saw firsthand was that the family’s women were the ones actually running the bank. Not only was Grandmother Bessie the mastermind behind the bank’s operations, Cargill’s mother, Sharon, was the head cashier and “backbone” of the bank. In addition to her role at the bank, she also ran a family-owned property and casualty insurance agency, mostly at night.
So before ever entering the banking industry, Cargill already had a clear picture that when given the opportunity and a level playing field, there was nothing beyond a hard-working, dedicated female banker.
What he also picked up during those formative years was the ability to see people of all colors and backgrounds as equals, partly because it was evident to him that, too often, they didn’t have the same opportunities as, for instance, a fourth-generation banker.
“What I saw every day was hard-working, honest, and kind people of color who simply wanted to be treated well and fairly. From growing up in Lewisville schools, to working on the farm and the bank, I believed that, given equitable opportunities, everyone was capable of succeeding,” he said.
This belief has driven his passion for creating opportunities for women and minorities at Arvest, and for working alongside anyone and everyone to serve the bank’s customers and communities.
Ron Witherspoon, who worked with Cargill as executive vice president in Central Arkansas for more than 12 years prior to becoming president of Arvest in Oklahoma City, sums up Cargill’s approach nicely:
“Jim is respectful of all. He is always polite and warm-hearted with everyone he encounters. He just has a way of connecting with others,” Witherspoon said.
LOOKING AHEAD
Looking ahead to his year as ABA chairman, Cargill plans to encourage his fellow bankers to embrace efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion because it’s the right thing to do, because it ensures the industry is serving and providing opportunities for everyone in the state and because it is crucial to the industry having a quality workforce.
“When we have a more diverse workforce, we can better identify and better serve the needs of everyone in our community. That means we also will have a more diverse customer base, which will help us have a greater impact in our communities. And, at the end of the day, that’s what banking is all about – positively impacting our communities through every means possible,” he said.
