Wings over Texas: Frank Breazeale Turned a Personal Passion for Flight into a Sideline for His Bank's Consumer Lending Program. (Community Banking)
2003; American Bankers Association; Volume: 95; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0194-5947
Autores Tópico(s)Finance, Markets, and Regulation
ResumoAccording to Central Casting, bankers are supposed to be those conservative, keep-your-feet-on-the-ground types whose only notion of excitement is a big interest-rate spread and an early tee time. By way of answer, there is Frank Breazeale, whose feet don't always stay on the ground, because the Texas community banker is both an experienced pilot and an lender as well. Breazeale, president and CEO of $176 million-assets First National Bank of Gilmer, has a passion for flight and for private planes. He's owned, though not necessarily by design, as many as four craft at once--and has managed to turn what he's learned for his hobby into an unusual specialty lending operation, especially for a community bank. Waiting for his wings Breazeale flies out of Gilmer's Fox Stephens Field, which the 5,000-person community named after first test pilot of the SR-71 Blackbird. But Breazeale's interest began earlier, back when he was in the service in the early 1960s. He served as a Navy ground school instructor, teaching budding naval aviators about instrument navigation. But that job was strictly on terra firma. Breazeale's own start in the cockpit came later, in the early 1980s when he was in his 40s and had become established in his banking career. A younger employee gave him his lessons, Breazeale earned his first license, and he advanced through to an instrument-flight rating over the years. (Just recently he obtained a multi-engine flight rating, but that's getting ahead of the story.) But it wasn't too long after learning the basics that he bought the first of a number of planes he's owned. Indeed, as Breazeale explains, it's not unusual for private pilots to behave with their planes much as American consumers do with their cars -- trading up to newer models after a relatively short time. Except, while motorists move on to newer or trendier or fancier, the prime motivator for the private flier comes down to one word: speed. always tell folks who buy a plane, 'In time you'll want to buy something faster', Breazeale says. One of the most appealing things about the general aviation world--as private flight is called--is the friendliness shown throughout by the pilots and others who live in it, says Breazeale. Frequently, he and his family have enjoyed the hospitality of strangers, bound only by a common interest in flying. As an example, the banker tells of flying into a small town's airport one day for a fuel stop -- both for his plane and his passengers. He quickly saw that there were no dining facilities anywhere in sight. He mentioned it to the technician gassing up his plane, who reached into his pocket, and tossed the Texan the keys to his pickup. She's yours for the evening, the tech said, and gave directions to a great place for dinner, too. Air Breazeale Although he's owned as many as four planes at one time, there's only one plane in the Breazeale hangar at present, plus one under construction. The operational plane is a single-engine Beechcraft A-36, a six-seat plane. (That's N36HB, in the photo accompanying this article on page 16.) The kit plane that he and a partner have been building is not some poky biplane. a Glasair III, a two-seat experimental craft that can hit 290 miles per hour, according to Breazeale. It's like the Lamborghini of sports airplanes, Breazeale says. It's what I spend all my spare time dreaming about. A different type of capital flight It was only natural, as Breazeale's interest in took off, for him to see a potential benefit to his bank. …
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