UMB already had a presence in the state with its fund services business occupying more than 85,000 square feet at the Schlitz Park office complex in downtown Milwaukee. The merger meant the addition of 13 locations in the state, jump starting the UMB Bank brand. John Hintze, previously head of commercial banking for Wisconsin Bank & Trust, was named Wisconsin market president for UMB Bank. Earlier this year, Hintze spoke with BizTimes about UMB’s plans for Wisconsin and some of the internal and external challenges that came with the business combination.

Growing presence in Wisconsin

With the merger and related system and branding changes complete, Hintze and his team have turned their focus to growing awareness of the UMB brand in the state and region, investing into relevant causes, organizations and events that ideally support the growth of the business.

“We’ve got to let our prospect base know who we are in this market and telling the story of UMB and deploying that through all of our commercial bankers in Wisconsin. We will be investing in talent in Milwaukee specifically, so there’s going to be a big push for that. We just created another position and opened a requisition for another commercial banker in Milwaukee, and you’ll continue to see that over the next year. At this point, too early to comment on any physical branch expansion, but certainly we’re going to continue to find the most strategic ways to deploy assets in our markets.”

Taking on external challenges

Hintze noted part of the strategy for the merger was to bring UMB’s strategy and consistent growth to the HLTF footprint. While the UMB brand had a presence in Milwaukee prior to the merger, it is still tough to stand out in a market with a number of long-standing brands.

“I would say when we are getting in front of a client or a prospect that the story is compelling and the story is well received, and we have had good success in Wisconsin this year in growing through the merger, growing through the conversion, and bringing new customers on under the UMB brand. … The challenge has been in getting more of that brand awareness out that we’re talking to and getting in front of more prospective businesses and individuals that we can tell the story, share a value proposition, and be a very compelling alternative in this market that has had a lot of the same brands for a long time”

Completing the integration

Any merger comes with a number of integration steps to complete, but Hintze said that work went smoothly from an internal perspective.

“I think we’ve executed that exceptionally well. That is all done. We’ve retained our team. We’ve had high retention on employees, we’ve had high retention on customers through this whole process, and we’re kind of past that now. So in my mind, it was a process that had to happen, but it was a non-event from any sort of negative issues. And now we’re already looking forward … and continuing to get in front of customers. … We’ve got the signage turned over and just kind of continuing forward. So it was kind of a, ‘yeah, we did it and it was great,’ but there wasn’t any big challenge with it. The UMB culture has resonated well within HTLF and in our entire footprint across the U.S.”