COVER STORY | LOCAL PROFILE
Chief Operations Officer Kelly Montefiori and Chief Executive Officer Mike Edwards check in on the construction progress of Marquette’s Operations, Training and Innovation Learning Center located at West 10th and Peach streets in Erie. The Center will open later this year.
Business Bankers Help Employers Gain Financial Resources, Support March 2021. It is hard to believe that one year has passed since the COVID-19 pandemic first reached our area. The impact on business owners here was very diverse. Some saw virtually all their revenue sources simply stop. Others were able to keep their business going as usual. Others still had to reinvent their business from scratch or make significant adjustments to work through a new normal of issues they never dealt with before. Topics like supply chain, cash flow, and employee and customer safety all represented significant challenges. In this article, we’ll hear from Marquette Savings Bank and how its business bankers have helped business owners gain the financial resources they needed to manage through situations no one could have foreseen. For Marquette, the past 12 months have been quite remarkable. It was a year that began with the construction of its new building at the corner of Peach and West 10th
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MARCH 2021 • mbabizmag.com
streets. As of press time, the final stages of construction are nearing completion. When complete, the building will feature a state-of-the-art Operations and Training Center and a new concept in banking — an Innovation Learning Center. The new building will more than double the size of Marquette’s headquarters and its unique architecture is sure to become a landmark in downtown Erie. The past 12 months have also been a time of unprecedented growth. Personal banking services — mortgages, loans, deposits, checking accounts and adoption of the intuitive online and mobile banking resources — all realized significant growth in 2020. Marquette’s proficiency with Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan processing and its commitment to local business throughout the pandemic resulted in substantial growth in its Business Banking department as CPAs, attorneys and other business owners referred business to Marquette. “Overall, the pandemic and the needs of our customers served to galvanize everyone throughout our organization,” says Chief Executive Officer Michael Edwards. “The importance of our role as the only remaining local bank hit home with everyone at Marquette. It drove us to work longer and harder to ensure anyone who came to us had what they needed to get through the challenges they were facing.”