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August 17, 2015 Executive Profile

Lewis takes banking career full circle

HBJ PHOTO | John Stearns Stephen Lewis, CEO of Thomaston Savings Bank.
By John Stearns

Before Stephen Lewis ever ran a bank, he evaluated banks as an examiner for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It provided valuable insight for what he would do later.

After working a year at Security Capital Credit Corp., a Glastonbury finance company, and obtaining his MBA at UConn, Lewis landed at the FDIC in 1991, when the Northeast was battling through a recession, real estate downturn and bank failures.

“The second assignment I had was [to examine] a bank that was about to fail,” said Lewis, 49, who joined Thomaston Savings Bank in 2006 as senior vice president and chief financial officer/treasurer and became president and CEO in 2010. “So instantly you got to see all the things not to do in banking — what a bad loan looked like, what bad policies look like, what bad governance looked like. It was a great experience from that perspective.”

What he thought would be a three- to four-year stint turned into 15 years at the FDIC, examining hundreds of Northeast banks as a safety and soundness examiner and supervisory examiner in Connecticut for the Boston-New York region.

Lewis said he tried to take a balanced and reasonable approach with banks, except where the law offered no leeway.

“As an examiner, it can be very easy just to make recommendations and not think how it impacts the institution,” he said. “And one of the things I always tried to do was look at it from the bank perspective: 'How is this recommendation or suggestion going to impact the rest of the institution?' And I always tried to weigh those two things.”

But examiners don't always see results of their recommendations. Lewis said he wanted to make decisions and see their outcomes and successes, so he set his sights on becoming a CFO at a financial institution, landing a job at Thomaston.

Today, he runs the 141-year-old bank, which had $847.2 million in assets as of June 30 and posted $1.9 million in net income through six months. The bank has scored the highest financial soundness rating by bank research firm BauerFinancial Inc. for 100 straight quarters, including through the Great Recession. Based in Thomaston, it has 10 branches within New Haven, Litchfield and Hartford counties, with an 11th under construction and set to open in Bristol in early 2016.

A state-chartered mutual savings bank that doesn't have stockholders, the bank's goal isn't to drive share price, but to take long-term views and make long-term investments in the communities in which it operates. It focuses largely on residential and commercial real estate lending and uses a relationship-banking model that Lewis said served it well, including during the recession.

“We know where we are lending, we know what the real estate values are, we stuck to what we are good at, didn't get caught up in the 105 percent loan-to-value type lending, or no-income-verification lending,” he said.

Keys to success include staying current on banking delivery channels, whether in a branch or on a smartphone, treating employees well, which translates to customers, and being community-oriented, Lewis said. The bank established a foundation in 1997 to return money to the community in perpetuity.

Lewis gives back personally, too, a lesson he learned growing up in Coventry with parents who served on the town committee and board of education. His involvements include serving on the Connecticut Business & Industry Association board. When his children, Jonathan and Benjamin, now 14 and 17, were younger, Lewis coached their youth sports, including soccer, which Lewis played at Villanova as a 6-3 defender.

Lewis stays fit today biking, running and hiking with his wife, Kimberly.

He's earned widespread industry respect, said James Nichol, Thomaston Savings Bank's executive vice president-chief operating officer.

“Steve's just somebody that you don't feel like you work for him, you feel like you work with him,” Nichol said. It's just a really nice atmosphere. “His enthusiasm and high energy really stands out.”

Lewis welcomes change, is progressive and innovative, listens to staff, has built a team atmosphere and is very engaged with customers, employees and committed to the organization, Nichol said.

“He's earned the loyalty of all of us,” Nichol said.

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