Peach Buzz Spring 2023

All Moved In!

Operations now fully under one roof

We started the New Year all together at our new downtown Gainesville headquarters on E.E. Butler Parkway next door to the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce.

The move took place over the New Year’s holiday weekend after several months of renovation.

“Our new expanded headquarters is a strong endorsement of Peach State Bank’s growth into one of Georgia’s largest community banks,” says Ron Quinn, president and CEO. “It also shows we are invested in downtown Gainesville and remaining a locally owned and operated community bank.”

With the relocation, we consolidated our Gainesville operations into one site with still enough room for future expansion. The 31,000 square-foot building is nearly twice as big as our former bank headquarters and enabled us to consolidate our loan operations, private banking, customer call center, accounting, and mortgage offices into a single location.

We also expanded the drive-through teller area - including an Interactive Teller Machine (ITM) that links to our Call Center.

With four street entrances, our customers will have easier access along with much more parking. We’ve also updated the landscaping and improved the exterior lighting. Inside, our new lobby features a modern interior design.

The 2023 new year starts a new era for Peach State Bank. We hope you will stop by soon to see our new home – and your new home for banking with a smile.

Business owners: Beware of a digital fraud that takes over your corporate checking account. Cyber-thieves can gain access to the finances of a business to make unauthorized transactions. That includes transferring company funds to another account, creating and adding fake employees to a payroll draw, or stealing sensitive customer information.

• Educate your employees. A strong security program paired with employee education about warning signs, safe practices, and responses to a suspected takeover are essential to protecting your company and customers.
  
  
• Protect your online environment. Do not use unprotected Internet connections. Encrypt sensitive data and keep updated virus protections on your computer. Use complex passwords and change them periodically.
  
  
• Partner with Peach State Bank to prevent unauthorized transactions. Talk to your business banker about programs to safeguard against unauthorized transactions. Positive Pay and other services offer call-backs, device authentication, multi-person approval processes, and batch limits.
  
  
• Pay attention to suspicious activity and react quickly. Look out for unexplained account or network activity, pop-up messages, and suspicious emails. If detected, immediately contact your financial institution, stop all online activity, and remove any systems that may have been compromised. Keep records of what happened.
  
  
• Understand your responsibilities and liabilities. Your bank account agreement will detail what commercially reasonable security measures are required in your business. It is critical that you understand and implement the security safeguards in the agreement.

Source: Georgia Bankers Association and American Bankers Association

Our two college football players – Georgia’s Dan Jackson and Tennessee’s Christian Charles, who were part of our billboard campaign — finished their seasons with Dan’s Bulldogs winning another national championship and Christian’s Volunteers ranked sixth in the country.

Dan and the undefeated 15-0 Bulldogs beat Texas Christian 65-7 in the College Football Playoffs National Championship Game for their second straight national championship.

Christian’s Tennessee team finished its season 12-2 with a 31-14 win over Clemson in the Orange Bowl.

We are proud to be associated with Dan and Christian and wish them well next season.

GO DAWGS and VOLS!

How Well Do You Know Your Downtown Gainesville History?

With its long-running makeover, downtown Gainesville is hardly recognizable from even a year ago. How much do you remember about the “old” downtown?

Questions

1. Gainesville’s newest parking deck recently opened at the corner of Brenau Avenue and Bradford Street a block off the downtown square. Name three other uses of that corner since the 1940s.

2. Banking downtown has changed dramatically over the years. Name some banks that once had offices near Gainesville’s Downtown Square.

3. What was the name of the shoe store that operated for years on Bradford Street just off Gainesville’s downtown square? Who operated it? What is it now?

Answers

1. Big Star grocery store was at the corner of Bradford Street and Brenau Avenue in Gainesville in the 1940s. It was followed by the Colonial grocery store, a Social Security office, the Turner, Wood & Smith Insurance Agency, and lastly as the temporary location of Hall County Library’s Gainesville branch while it was under renovation.

2. First National Bank started out on Main Street where the former Millner’s and Frames You-Nique shops later operated. First National moved to South Green Street (the new Peach State Bank site), then across Washington Street to where the Courtyard by Marriott hotel is under construction.

The Citizens Bank was located on the Bradford Street side of the square before moving to Washington Street with several branches throughout the county. Bank of America currently occupies the Washington Street location.

Gainesville National Bank once had an office at the corner of Main and Washington on the downtown square, later moving to Green Street across from The Times when it became First Atlanta Bank, which morphed into Wachovia and later merged with Wells Fargo. Home Federal Savings & Loan also was located on the block that is the new Peach State Bank headquarters.

3. Nickel-Back Shoe Store operated by Jim and Archie Cash. Recess Gastro Pub now operates inside this former shoe shop.

Poultry Equipment Manufacturer Led By Local Industry Veterans

CMS Solutions & Logistics is one of the fastest-growing poultry equipment manufacturers and millwright services companies in the country.

Led by President Heath Jarrett and an executive team with more than 180 years of poultry industry experience, the company has grown from two employees to 61 since its founding in 2016.

“We’ve all been in the business for a long time,” Jarrett says, “and have built strong reputations and relationships within the poultry industry.”

Jarrett is a Hall County native and Johnson High graduate. His grandfather was a poultry farmer, so he grew up around the workings of a grower operation.

Located in Gainesville’s midtown area, CMS has recently purchased a group of six buildings nearby that it is renovating to house business offices, manufacturing, research & development, and a training facility. The move to the 93,000 square-foot complex is due directly to the company’s fast growth.

CMS also has made an equally large investment in manufacturing equipment to keep pace with surging customer demand for its products and OEM parts.

“We’ve definitely secured a foothold in the equipment industry while earning the trust of our customers,” Jarrett says.

We are pleased that CMS chose Peach State Bank for its operational account. Peach State also assisted CMS in financing the purchase of its new headquarters.

CMS is a thriving company that is creating jobs and helping our local economy grow. We are proud to be a banking partner and look forward to a long relationship that enhances our community as well.

“The partnership between CMS and Peach State Bank has been a natural fit from day one,” says Peach State Bank Executive Vice President Terry Baker. “CMS was looking for a more personal banking relationship, and they found that with Peach State. Community banks are particularly built to serve family-owned businesses, and it is exciting to watch CMS flourish and grow alongside our local community.”

LOCAL WINDOW ON THE ECONOMY

Healthcare – Our Newest Golden Egg

A statue with a life-size chicken, a pocket park, and a water tower all pay homage to Gainesville as the Poultry Capital of the World. Maybe someday we should erect a giant stethoscope in equal appreciation of our local healthcare industry – the next generation cornerstone in our increasingly diversified economy.

It was poultry that rescued our cotton-based economy in the early 20th century from a boll weevil infestation and the Great Depression. Still a heavy hitter today, poultry processors and support businesses (like equipment manufacturer CMS featured in this newsletter) employ more than 14,000 in Hall County with an overall $6.27 billion economic impact.

However, with more than 500 medical facilities in Hall County and 16,000 professionals (15.2 percent of our total workforce), healthcare has become the next great golden egg for our community. We don’t have specific data on the combined economic contributions of all medical providers in Hall County – such as private physician practices, Longstreet Clinic, and Northeast Georgia Diagnostic Center – but a 2020 study by the Georgia Hospital Association estimated a positive financial impact of over $3.5 billion alone for the Northeast Georgia Health System across our community and state.

The success of our local medical community certainly is not contained within the borders of Hall County. Similar to our roots as a trading center at the crossroads of Mule Camp Springs, we are a regional healthcare hub serving more than 1.6 million people across Northeast Georgia – and likewise a catalyst for the advanced specialty practices based here as well.

Healthcare clearly has emerged alongside poultry as one of our economic pillars with plenty of upside growth potential. Georgia economist Jeffrey Humphreys states that the continued growth of Gainesville’s medical sector will make us even more suitable for retiree-based economic development while boosting per-capita incomes. It also is a big driver for new industry moving here.

One look across our horizon is all it takes to confirm healthcare’s promising future here. You can’t miss the huge cranes building a third Medical Center tower in Gainesville, two more stories for patient beds at the hospital’s South Hall location in Braselton, and multiple medical plazas and urgent care centers across the region.

The expansion is not just in new construction but also in a new generation of doctors. In addition to heavy physician recruitment, we are developing our own homegrown base of young docs with the state’s largest community-based Graduate Medical Education (GME) program.

We can thank Hall County native son Nathan Deal, who served as Georgia governor from 2011 to 2019, for inspiring GME. Concerned that Georgia was losing too many talented medical students to practices in other states, Gov. Deal set a goal of adding 400 residency slots across the state. It’s only fitting that his hometown hospital is leading the way with over 200 residents and fellows across seven specialties – contributing an initial $66 million economic impact followed by another $18 million annually.

Less talked about, but just as significant, is the recent creation of the local health system’s Northeast Georgia Health Ventures, a medical entrepreneurial program that may be laying the groundwork here for a Silicon Valley of healthcare innovation.

This exciting program opens the door to the development of new medical inventions and protocols created in the real-world working labs of our local hospital’s operating rooms, nursing stations, physician practices, and emergency departments. This program is a two-way street that benefits NGMC patients as well as fostering medical advancements that could potentially reach across the world.

While I have focused on the economic pluses of our area’s progressive healthcare system, I would be remiss not to point out the most important beneficiary is our own personal health. We are blessed to be within a stone’s throw of a medical community that very likely is unmatched for any city or county our size, anywhere.

Which is why – whether it’s a pending recession or a common cold – we’re all much better off living in the medical foothills of Northeast Georgia.

Nicole Lineberry, Assistant VP of Loan Operations, Senior Loan Processor