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Devon Porter: Born to Be a Banker
Devon Porter: Born to Be a Banker
By Leonard Shapiro
There’s a new bank in Middleburg. Sort of.
It’s the MainStreet Bank, even though, at the moment, it’s located in a small office on Pendleton Street in a town that doesn’t have a Main Street. There are no tellers, human or electronic, no driveup window, no pens chained to a counter, the better to fill out a deposit slip or endorse a check.
But make no mistake. All of the above are in the bank’s future according to Devon Porter, who occupies that office and is a senior vice president of a business-focused community bank headquartered in Fairfax with branches in Herndon, McLean, Clarendon, Leesburg and Washington, D.C.
“It’s our intent to put in a full-service bank branch within the town limits,” he said recently. “I’d estimate six to nine months.”
Here’s a fact, not an estimate. MainStreet has $2 billion in assets, with a reputation for outstanding personal ser vice.
According to its website, “our customers aren’t just names and numbers to us. We are invested in their goals and ambitions, and give them the care and attention that only a community bank can give. MainStreet serves as a consultant, partner, and friend to our clients because we are committed to building longlasting relationships.”
Porter will run the Middleburg branch, and it’s a perfect fit. He grew up just outside of town, graduated from Wakefield in The Plains and James Madison University and has spent most of the last 20 years working at Sonabank in Middleburg, now known as Primis.
You might even say he was born to be a banker. His late father, Rod Porter, and his mother, Georgia Derrico, founded Sonabank in 2004, and Southern Financial Bank before that in 1986. Rod was Sona’s president and she was the CEO until they retired in 2019.
“When I graduated college, they asked me what I wanted to do,” Porter said. “I really didn’t know, so they said we’ll start you as a teller. I began in Herndon and I reported to a wonderful lady named Jossie Arroyo. The first day she said to me, ‘I don’t care who your parents are. You’re working for me now.’ I always joke that if you ever worked for her for one single day, you’ll always work for her. I still text her. She’s still the boss.”
After a year, Porter started working in other departments.
“On one of my first days in sales, I visited a boat marina, a golf course and a crematorium to work with clients,” he said. “By the end of that day, I realized why I loved banking so much. There are so many different personalities, these businesses worked so differently. But when you helped a customer, they were always very appreciative, very welcoming. That’s when I decided to stay in banking. There are just some days when this job is so cool.”
About a year ago, Porter was approached by MainStreet about its new Middleburg operation. He was ready for a change and took the job. Though he’s going solo right now in that small office, he has a wide range of responsibilities, from opening accounts to developing new relationships to helping customers with all manner of financial issues.
And before long, he said with a smile, “we’re going to have those pens with the chains on them. It’ll be a small, traditional bank branch. It’s just a matter of time.”
