MESSAGE Welcome to Randy Hultgren, the IBA’s new president and CEO! Randy’s first President’s Message for the Illinois Banker magazine is taken from his welcome speech given during the IBA’s REWIRED Annual Conference on June 16. Randy Hultgren
IBA President and CEO
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rom the brink of bankruptcy to the best banking association. I had no idea how bad the situation was for the Illinois Bankers Association 20 years ago when Linda Koch stepped up to be our President and CEO. Through many difficult years, Linda built an incredibly strong team at the IBA, worked tirelessly to keep and grow the membership of the Association, and regained the stature and respect of the Illinois Bankers Association with elected officials at every level of government. Linda has been the leader we have needed to make it through devastating financial crises, through unprecedented legislative threats to banking from DC, and through significant consolidation and reduction in the number of banks in Illinois. I have heard from so many of you that the IBA has become the gold standard of banking associations throughout our nation. Thank you, Linda, for all you have done and continue to do to serve our great members and our vital industry! Bruce Baker, our General Counsel and Executive Vice President, has offered wisdom and direction at every step of rebuilding the IBA. No one in America knows more about banking or has had a bigger role in shaping good banking policy than Bruce. He is vigilantly watching for threats to our Members and is constantly crafting creative legal solutions to compliance and regulatory challenges. Bruce has led a powerful legal team and the IBA and our Members will continue to receive industry leading legal advice and counsel. Bruce, thank you for your great work and dedication advising and advocating for banks in Illinois and around the country for decades. Allow me to share more about who I am. My name is Randy Hultgren, and I am the
• July-August 2020
incoming President and CEO of the Illinois Bankers Association. If I was sitting in your chair, I would be thinking Randy has huge shoes to fill with the amazing Linda Koch retiring. This important role is a dream come true for me. I have watched and worked with Linda and the IBA team for more than 2 decades, never having an idea that I would one day be given the privilege of helping to lead the Association and lead the fight for the banking industry. My private sector career has been as an attorney, a financial advisor, a bond salesman, and a banker. As a banker myself, I know how you serve and help dreams come true. I have also had the privilege of serving in elected office for 24 years, with my last 8 years representing the great people of the 14th district of Illinois in the United State Congress. My wife, Christy and I just celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary, have 4 great children, and we are about to become grandparents any day now. My life story is tied to banking. I grew up with a dad who was a professional boxer. Well actually, he put people in boxes for a profession. He is a mortician. My dad worked for a funeral home in Chicago and he had a dream of someday owning his own funeral home. In the mid-1970s, the opportunity arose when a funeral director in Wheaton, Illinois, suddenly died, and his wife needed to sell the business. My family sold everything we owned and my mom and dad met with a local banker at Gary-Wheaton Bank, named Jerry Bradshaw. He looked at what we had and how much the funeral home would cost and said he could not quite make the numbers work, but he believed in my mom and dad. He believed that Wheaton needed people like us to serve
