Cristin Reid can't compete with the big banks on rates. A 4.5% CD from a national player, she said, "would destroy our margin." But she has other levers that she can pull to retain her loyal customers.
Reid is chair and CEO of privately held Capitol National Bank, a $212 million community bank in Lansing, Michigan, with about 30 employees and a customer base that ranges from mom-and-pop ice cream shops to some of the state's largest developers.
Where a bigger bank could run a client's numbers and walk away, Reid can make a judgment call and choose to stick with a borrower who is struggling.
When a community bank is "run by people who live there, you're more committed to helping customers through difficult times and helping them succeed," Reid explained.
Earlier this year, an apartment-complex owner undergoing cancer treatment fell behind on the terms of his loan. Occupancy dropped. The debt-service coverage ratio missed what the bank and borrower had agreed to. A larger bank that had also lent to the owner wanted out and pushed to force him to sell.
Reid refused. "We took a ton of heat from [them] because they weren't going to renew the deal," she said. "We had to push back hard."
The borrower recovered – both his health and the business. The property is now fully leased, and he can either keep running it or sell it at a profit.
That kind of freedom is, by Reid's own account, the whole point of staying small.
"We know all of our customers, and when they walk into the bank it's expected that our tellers call them by name."
It's one thing to be small and personalized, Reid added, but there's no room to be sleepy. "It's quiet … so it's easy to be complacent and just keep doing what you're doing because it's worked all these years."
That's why Reid is focused on modernizing Capitol National in every sense of the word. She has programs in place to draw a younger customer base and also goes to great lengths to develop the bank's early career employees.
So when a senior role opened up in 2025, Reid spent a year training a younger employee to step into the job — with guardrails to avoid putting the bank at risk.
Likewise, the bank is also training another younger worker to replace an employee who plans to retire soon.
"Everyone talks about investing in their employees, but if you don't take the opportunity when an opening exists to take their hand and guide them into that next role," then you're not doing it.
Reid is also focused on making the bank more strategic. That means updating business practices and standard procedures, automating processes wherever possible to speed up tasks like loan closings, all while cutting errors and boosting efficiency.
For a 30-person bank, Reid said, staying nimble is a matter of survival.
"My greatest fear is being eaten by a wild animal. You know, I'm kind of joking, but kind of not joking," Reid admitted. "You have to be faster than someone else … you just can't be the slowest."
