Lifelong resident retires from bank

Published 10:00 am Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Bank board members run in the family of Coupeville resident Al Sherman’s family.

His father was one of Whidbey Island Bank’s charter members. And after Sherman’s father retired, Sherman’s uncle, Edwin Sherman, took his place. Then, 9 years ago, Sherman himself filled a place on the bank’s board of directors.

From 1996 until recently, Sherman brought what fellow board member, Tony Pickering of Mount Vernon, calls “his unique down-to-earth, common sense attitude” to the board.

Having lived in Coupeville his whole life, Sherman brought a local angle and hometown representation to the rapidly growing bank, which started in the early 1960s in Coupeville and has since spread its 19 branches to several different counties.

Sherman, 73, said he is ready to retire and relinquish his position to a younger, more involved business person. He said he believes a bank’s board of directors can make more pertinent decisions when its members are still highly involved in a local businesses, business relations, dealings, and community needs.

“Directors have to be involved, and when you retire from a business, you kind of get out of that,” he said.

But for Sherman, his nine years with the board were well spent.

“It’s just been a real positive thing,” he said. “It just been one of the good things I’ve done in my life.”

Sherman said the board of directors sets an organization’s policy and the major decisions as to whether or not the organization should expand its services and location access.

Over the past nine years, Sherman said he has watched the Whidbey Island Bank grow and develop, and he said he is proud to say he was part of structure that made it possible.

“When I got on, the bank had less than $100 million in assets, and today the bank’s like $750 million,” he said. “It’s grown very rapidly since I’ve been involved.”

Sherman said bank shares are now traded on NASDAQ and the company employes approximately 300 people.

“It’s great to be a part of something that you feel great about,” he said. “The business is growing, we have a lot of good people and it was just exciting. I really liked it.”

To wish Sherman well and thank him for the time and effort he put forth for the board, bank, local community members, business people, friends and fellow board members threw Sherman a party May 26 at the Whidbey Island Bank in Coupeville.

“Somebody snuck around and did it,” he said.

Shelly Angus, the vice president and corporate secretary for Whidbey Island Bank, said she appreciated Sherman’s clarity of vision and common sense attitude. She said the rest of the board will miss him at the meetings, the first of which they had without him on the same day as his party.

Sherman said he was surprised with the party and pleased by seeing a variety of friends there to wish him well.

“He’s just a real classy guy,” Pickering said.

He added that Sherman added a voice of wisdom and a “people-first” philosophy to the board and bank.

“I couldn’t respect him more,” he said. “He was soft spoken, but when he spoke everybody just shut up and listen.”

Throughout his party, lifelong friends, local business owners, community members, bank employees and board members reminisced and thanked Sherman for his years of service as a community member and as a representative on the bank’s board of directors.