Stanley A. Lybarger has spent his entire career with Bank of Oklahoma, and his experience has been anything but narrow.
Since his start in 1974, Mr. Lybarger, who will become chief executive of Bank of Oklahoma's parent company on Jan. 1, has held several top positions.
He was there during the troubled 1980s, when the collapse of the region's real estate and energy markets prompted the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to pump $130 million into the failing Tulsa-based bank.
And he was there when the bank had to shake off the effects of the April 19 bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast injured one bank employee and forced the closing of the bank's main Oklahoma City office, one block from the bomb site, for four days.
But Mr. Lybarger has seen his share of happy times as well. He has played a key role in engineering the bank's financial turnaround, and last year he led it on acquisition forays into Texas and Arkansas.
And he can take at least partial credit for the bank's second-quarter performance, the latest in a string of positive results. The net income of $12.1 million came in a solid 7.1% ahead of the year-earlier figure. For the year to date, the bank has earned $24 million, up 10%.
The ups and downs may have helped Mr. Lybarger, now president and chief operating officer, gain the perspective he will need as CEO of both the bank and its $4 billion-asset holding company, BOK Financial Corp.
Mr. Lybarger, 45, is succeeding George B. Kaiser, the Tulsa oilman who acquired the bank in 1991 and holds close to 80% of its stock.
Mr. Kaiser, 53, will remain chairman of the board and will be active in bank affairs, he said in an interview this week.
Mr. Lybarger "has seen good times and very bad times," Mr. Kaiser noted. "This was clearly his job to earn or to lose. He earned it."
Mr. Lybarger's vision of the bank's future is likely to include expansion into Kansas and Missouri. But it may take a while before he gets there. The bank's moves into Texas and Arkansas remain in their "infant stages," and regional consolidation has slowed a bit after a flurry of activity, he said. (Bank of Oklahoma bought a trust office in the northeast Texas town of Sherman and Citizens Bank of Northwest Arkansas. Both deals closed last year.)
Mr. Lybarger and Mr. Kaiser said the expansion will not compromise the bank's attention to its home territory, which both say is the bank's primary mission.
Nor do they see the bank losing its independence. Mr. Kaiser said he has not sold any of the stock he bought when he acquired the bank, and said he has no plans to do so.
"Our goal is to be the strongest operator in the state," said Mr. Lybarger. "Until we are the very best in every one of the areas in which we operate, we still have work to do. Our desire is to continue to build our organization."
Said Mr. Kaiser: "We are still only halfway down the path in our strategic plan. We want to be the dominant provider."
Those goals seem more attainable than in years past. The regional economy is healthy and gaining strength, and modest growth is forecast for the next few years.
Bank of Oklahoma's traditional strength has been as a middle market commercial bank. It has also grown into a leading consumer bank, a reflection of Mr. Lybarger's desire to diversify.
Diversification will continue under his leadership, he said.
"Our intention has always been to broaden the mix of business so we didn't have concentration in any single area," he said. "That's one of the lessons that the banks in this part of the country learned in the 1980s."
