While banks all over America seem to be changing names or get swallowed up by bigger banks, the Mahoning Valley has been home to a local bank that has called Canfield HOME for nearly 140 years.

Farmers National Banks just recently unveiled the new headquarters expansion.
21 News asked their CEO how the bank has been able to stay local and acquire other community banks in the region while still remaining true to its roots.

"We may be growing but we try to stay small at the same time," said Farmers CEO/President, Kevin Helmick.

Farmers National Bank just unveiled their new headquarters right where their original bank location once stood nearly 140 years ago.

Kevin Helmick has been Farmers President and CEO for about a decade. Surprisingly he's only the 9th President the bank has ever had.
He says the need to expand their headquarters came as the bank as a whole has grown and expanded. He says making a new, high-tech building for their employees keeps them happy and then they pass that feeling down to the customers.

"The building is just a representation of the growth we've seen and thinking about the post covid workforce.  We didn't want to just build a building. We wanted a history and culture to come out of the building. Around every corner there's something about farmers and the history of farmers and why our community and company are so closely tied together," said Helmick.

The first day the bank was open back in 1887, it was a busy day. They brought in $170 in deposits and a couple days later they wrote out the first loan. It was for a farmer, of course who wanted to buy a couple pigs. They've been a lot busier since.

In the last 50 years they've gone from 50 employees to 700. In the last 10 years they've gone from one billion dollars in assets to over 5 billion.
The big increases began when the bank took on different roles like wealth management.

"We've expanded into wealth management so we have a little over $4 billion management arm just on its own as well as the $5 billion bank. That has been very well-received by our customer base. I think all of those things have helped us to compete," added Helmick.

They've also merged with six other banks over the past decade, allowing them to expand to nearly 70 locations.
Many of them are in small communities where customers prefer smaller banks.

"It matters when your friend or your neighbor is helping you with your finances or helping you with that car loan and those things are important to us so we've tried to make sure as we've expanded and grown that we maintain that philosophy," Helmick said.

Helmick says Farmers success comes from customer service and the connection each branch has to the people in that community.
He says their business philosophies will help them continue to expand in the future.