Business First

Tommy Barker/BancorpSouth

Tommy Barker enjoys his career as BancorpSouth’s first vice president/market manager of West Monroe, La., where two full-service branches have opened as part of the Tupelo, Miss.-based bank’s expansion in Louisiana.

Barker finds that while BancorpSouth offers unprecedented convenience to its customers due to technological advances such as online banking, customers continue to want personal contact with their bankers.

“In the banking business, you fill a lot of roles: listener, counselor and adviser,” says Barker, who earned undergraduate and MBA degrees from the UM School of Business Administration. “Customers feel comfortable talking to me about their needs, and it’s very fulfilling to be a part of helping them achieve their dreams.”

Barker says bankers encounter an array of people and needs—an entrepreneur receiving the financing he needs to begin a business, a landowner starting a development, newlyweds buying their first home, a family remodeling its home or a young person purchasing her first car.

“BancorpSouth has never lost its focus of being a hometown bank,” Barker says. “While there will be continued growth in nontraditional banking services as we strive to make banking more and more convenient in the fast-paced lives of our customers, I believe there will always be a need for balance between ‘instant’ banking and building long-term relationships with bankers. We’re always going to be available for customers when they need some advice or want input on their ideas.”

The banking industry has become extremely flexible over the years in order to respond to constant challenges, Barker says, such as competing with alternative investment opportunities available to customers and retaining customer bases.

Barker joined BancorpSouth right after his Ole Miss graduation and went through the bank’s management training program. He has been based in Tupelo and Olive Branch, Miss., where he has been involved in loan review and audit, as well as consumer and commercial lending. The move to the Monroe/West Monroe area—which is actually one market—took him back to the community in which he grew up.

BancorpSouth, which has banking and mortgage locations in six states, has nearly $11 billion in assets after the recent acquisition of the Brentwood, Tenn.-based Premier Bancorp Inc. and the Business Holding Corp. of Baton Rouge, La. With the merger, BancorpSouth extends its service area in Louisiana. It already has 13 locations in east and central Louisiana, including Monroe, West Monroe, Shreveport, Bossier City, Rayville and Ruston.

At the same time the bank is expanding in Louisiana, it is increasing its impact on society with a gift to the Ole Miss First scholarship initiative. The funds are to assist students from the West Monroe/Monroe, La., area who want to attend the university.

“We are very excited to open doors for prospective students,” Barker says. “Helping young people obtain education is vitally important for the improvement and betterment of our society. The business community, in particular, should support education because it is the answer to many of the challenges we face.”—Tina Hahn