Banking veteran Prescott to head new Irwin Union Bank

Jack Prescott came into the banking industry along the road less traveled, joining First Interstate Bank as its corporate pilot before he moved into a management-training program.

For a few weeks, Prescott once again has been flying solo as it launches the Reno office of Irwin Union Bank.

In the coming weeks, Prescott expects to add about five staff members to Irwin Union Bank's office at 5496 Reno Corporate Drive. And by the end of next year, he projects the bank will employ close to a dozen.

But last week, Prescott still was working by himself as he prepared to get the 4,253-square-foot banking office in south Reno open for business.

He'd spent 11 years with U.S. Bank in Reno, most recently as the company's regional president in northern Nevada. He'd been hitting his numbers with U.S. Bank, but Prescott was looking for new challenges.

"If you get into a comfort zone, you don't want to stay that way very long," he says.

Approached by Irwin Union Bank about his interest in spearheading the company's first foray into Reno, Prescott began digging into the proposal during his weekend hours.

"It became more and more fun as I got into it," he said.

Irwin Union Bank, a unit of Irwin Financial Corp. of Columbus, Ind., was looking for a veteran of the banking business in Reno to lead the new office.

Prescott, who had worked at First Interstate and Sierra Bank before joining U.S. Bank, had taken a couple of years away from banking to run a manufacturing business.

That experience, he says, will serve him well as Irwin Union Bank targets business and industrial customers many of them within a stone's throw of the bank's new office.

The bank's pitch to those customers: Providing of courier service and technology to bring the bank to them, saving them time.

And Prescott is driven, too, by the hope that the Irwin Union's employees will be viewed by their customers as trusted advisors.

Additional branches are possible in the Reno area, he said, as the bank's consumer business grows.

Irwin Union Bank, which also operates in Arizona, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and California, opened a branch in Carson City in 1999.