Bangor Savings celebrates 150th year Despite gloomy economic times, financial institution keeps looking forward

It’s during another recession that Bangor Savings Bank is marking its 150th year as a community financial institution. The bank has been here before, and its officers aren’t worried.

Ideally, organizers of the bank’s 150th celebration, which took place Thursday in the lobby of its original location on State Street in Bangor, would have preferred happier economic times to mark the occasion. For many, though, perseverance through the tough times over the years is what set the stage for Thursday’s gathering to take place.

“All of us feel fortunate to be here on this day of our 150th celebration and we know that it is just our good fortune that we are,” said P. James Dowe, president of Bangor Savings Bank for the last seven years. “We have learned not only how to survive and endure, but to change and stay relevant.”

Bangor Savings Bank remains standing after more than 30 banks have opened and closed in Bangor alone, Dowe said. It has survived banking revolutions, panics and depressions, two major floods, the Great Fire of 1911 and at least eight wars or international conflicts, he said.

Bangor Savings Bank is one of the top financial institutions in the state, a long way from its incorporation along the Kenduskeag River in 1852 or even 40 years ago when it had only two offices.

Chris Pinkham, president of the Maine Association of Community Banks, said it’s likely that Bangor Savings soon will top KeyBank and Fleet in terms of presence statewide. Both publicly traded banks slowly are leaving the Maine market. Bangor Savings took advantage of that shift by purchasing 32 of Fleet’s branches almost two years ago.

But future growth, which the bank’s directors “have an obligation to ensure,” will have to come in “a cautious fashion,” said David Carlisle, chairman of Bangor Savings Bank’s board of directors. The board is looking at expanding in southern Maine by possibly merging with community banks already established there. He said in most expansion situations, it’s less expensive to merge with existing banks than to build new branches.

The bank’s profits were down in the last year, partly because of the expense of acquiring Fleet’s branches and partly because of a one-time accounting write-off on auto leases, which usually are carried over time, Carlisle said. So far this year, he said, profits are up. The bank’s next annual meeting is in June.

But the fact profits were down irked some of the bank’s incorporators who were accustomed to the days when Bangor Savings had as much as $100 million in reserves. Dowe said he has heard about the disappointment, but the decisions to expand or write off the loans were made to prepare the bank for future growth.

“You don’t last 150 years without being brutal with yourself,” Dowe said. “You deal with the good news and the bad.”

Pinkham said Bangor Savings Bank’s decision to expand through the Fleet acquisition was a “dramatic move” during a period of time when earnings for all community banks statewide were stressed because of the national and statewide recessions.

“Banks that do that have a hiccup – my words, not theirs – in annual earnings,” Pinkham said. “Banks that take dramatic market moves like they did usually don’t recover in a short period of time.”

Dowe said he is certain the bank will survive even given today’s economic conditions. Bangor Savings Bank, he said, always has participated in regional economic development efforts and now is trying to take part in statewide projects. If the original bank founders were here today, he said, “they’d probably be more contemporary than we are.

“When people are getting laid off and businesses are going into bankruptcy, that’s challenging for everybody,” Dowe said. “It’s disruptive but it doesn’t disable the whole economy. You have to look at the people who are making it.”

At a brief ceremony Thursday, Dowe recognized two individuals who helped some of those businesses make it over the years. For almost one-third of Bangor Savings Bank’s 150-year history, Alice McInnis has walked through the front door of the bank’s original location on State Street almost every day.

She didn’t think she’d be staying with the bank for so long. A couple of years, then out, was the plan she had when she started as a telephone operator in November 1961. Today, she is an executive vice president.

“There’s never been a day I didn’t look forward to coming to work,” McInnis said.

Also recognized was McInnis’ first boss, Malcolm Jones, who was the bank’s president for more than 40 years until 1995. He once occupied a desk in the middle of the lobby where Thursday’s event took place.

Jones said several years after McInnis arrived and she had been promoted a few times, she told her boss that he had to move.

“Alice drove me out,” recalled Jones. “She said she needed the space for customer service. She said customers come first, not the bank’s president.”