‘A cornerstone of the community’: Pioneer Bank places second in Top Workplaces midsize category

One of the things President and CEO Christopher Palmer finds funny about his company, Pioneer Bank, is that it's been around longer than New Mexico has been a state.

Headquartered in Roswell with 11 locations total, Pioneer Bank ranked as the second-best midsized company to work at in this year's Top Workplaces awards.

The bank has 167 employees and offers traditional benefits, including a comprehensive insurance package and paid time off, as well as multiple retirement plan options and a Flexible Spending Account. The company also has a philanthropic initiative, Team Pioneer, that supports local nonprofits.

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Palmer. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How is the focus of a community bank like Pioneer Bank different from other banks?

That's a good question because there are so many banks that are community banks. The vast majority of banks are community banks, but most assets and most depositors bank with a big bank. But the focus and the selling point is the people that you see that work for a community bank are out in the community, the dollars that come in are in the community, the dollars that go out are in the community.

The bank has been around for more than a century. How do you keep a business standing up that long?

Well, there were some dicey years before I was at the bank, like every bank that's been around that long. One of the things that's comical to me is Pioneer has been around longer than the state of New Mexico. We've gone through several name changes, and obviously a lot of people have come through the bank and we've had branches open and close. We've had business lines come and go over all that time. But especially in Chaves County, we've been, as I said, a cornerstone of the community since 1901.

What's unique about banking in New Mexico?

I would used to have said that there were too many banks for the number of people and communities that we're in, but that changes every year. We lose a couple. New Mexico is not a terribly business-friendly state, so competition is pretty tough. We have competition from credit unions, big banks. We have deposits here, but lending opportunities are not as plentiful. So it's kind of a tough go, and most banks like Pioneer grew up in the mortgage business, but we've completely gotten out of that business because of folks like Rocket Mortgage that have just eroded our market share in that space. So we've had to adapt.

What does Pioneer do to recruit and retain staff?

We don't have to do a lot to recruit because we have more applicants (who come) into the bank than we have positions on a daily basis. So really, it's picking from the various people who apply to the bank. We have our fair share of turnover in the bottom third of the employees. In the top two-thirds, we have almost no turnover. Those people come and stay with us. We celebrate 30-year anniversaries frequently. We celebrate retirements frequently. So we have people who come and stay.