Speaker: Wendell Bontrager, Co-Founder, President, Sonata Bank
Could you describe a time that Strategic Orientation, LLC helped you?
Wendell Bontrager: Hi, I'm Wendell Bontrager co-founder and president of Sonata Bank based in Brentwood, Tennessee. So I've known Richard for about the last 20 years. He and I have had concurrent paths in banking over those years. And so when we were forming our bank, one of the first projects we engaged in was to write our own policies. We need really a lot of help developing one specific policy related to franchise restaurants because that's a very specific niche that our bank is going to be pursuing. And so knowing Richard and his past role as chief credit officer for a large regional bank, we engaged Richard to help us write that policy.
What are the greatest benefits you received by working with Strategic Orientation, LLC?
Wendell Bontrager: So we had a great experience working with Richard and Strategic Orientation through that process. I would tell you from a couple of vantage points. One Richard is a very methodical thinker and he really is well organized and helping us go through step by step to write the loan policy. This particular policy had some unique elements to it. And because of that, we really had to spend the time really developing that policy. So Richard with his background was really instrumental in that, I would say two, Richard was very consultative. So the interplay with he and I specifically went very well because we were able to bounce ideas off of one another. I would run something past him. He would give us some counter thoughts and all that entire process was again, very instrumental for us to develop a policy. And I would say finally, the culmination or the results of that policy is that we had regulators, which is the OCC came in and reviewed our policy and gave a strong endorsement of the policy we had written. And even though I'd like to claim credit, I really had to give credit to Richard
What advice would you give to businesses that are considering working with Richard and Strategic Orientation, LLC?
Wendell Bontrager: So a couple of reasons, I think I would strongly endorse using Richard and working with him on Strategic Orientation. One is you have access to Richard himself being a small boutique shop that Richard is. You're talking with a key person there that has the mindset. He's got the leadership and management experience. He's led large teams through multi state regions. He's got the background to help your company whatever project you're undertaking. Secondly, is the nature of the roles he's had, allow him to get inside of your mind, to help you think through a process, think through a project, think through whatever it is that you're trying to work through. Richard has that background to really help you think through it as a company. And I don't think you'll regret engaging him.
