Main Street Banking: A Podcast for Community Bankers

Hosted by Barret School of Banking

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Oct 2026

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The Paul W. Barret, Jr. School of Banking is a non-profit independent school created by and governed by a Board of Regents, whose members are executives from banks and other firms involved with the financial services industry.The mission of the School is to provide an adult learning experience for the career-oriented individual in commercial banking or a related financial services industry business.

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October 30, 202612 min

Main Street Banking Economic Update with Jim Reber (October 2026)

Show Notes Episode Date: October 30, 2026 Host: Byron Earnheart Guest: Jim Reber, The Baker Group Episode Summary The Fed held on Wednesday. Thursday's numbers said it isn't finished. Jim Reber walks through the October 28 meeting, the two votes for a hike, September's inflation reading and the first look at third-quarter GDP, then where that leaves Treasury yields. Key Points A hold, with two votes to hike: The FOMC kept the fed funds target at 3.75% to 4% in a 10–2 vote. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack and Governor Lisa Cook dissented in favor of a quarter-point increase. The market expected the hold and barely moved. Fewer policy meetings, starting in 2027: Chairman Warsh said one of the Fed's eight meetings in 2027 will go to strategic planning, with no policy change on the table. In 2028 it will be two. Reber notes that doesn't rule out emergency meetings. The Fed called them at the start of the financial crisis and again at the start of COVID. What the market is pricing: As of recording, Reber puts the odds of a quarter-point hike at the December 9 meeting near 72%. January is the first meeting the market fully prices one. By the end of 2027 it expects two more increases, with the overnight rate around 4.5%. Inflation is moving the wrong way: Core PCE, the Fed's preferred gauge, rose to 3.1% in September from 3.0%. Headline came in at 3.6%. Inflation isn't just stuck, Reber says. There is "still work to be done on the inflation front." GDP was a head fake: The first estimate of third-quarter GDP was 3.4%, up from 2.2% in the second quarter. Reber's read: much of it came from inventory building, which doesn't last, and from consumers spending faster than their income grew. That means more debt. Two revisions are still to come, in November and December. Where Rates Sit The 10-year Treasury was pushing 5.30% at the end of September and sat near 4.90% at recording. The short end is down about 25 basis points. Reber expects a modest increase in fed funds and Treasury yields near where they are now. With rates near a 20-year high by his count, he suggests listeners so inclined might think about a purchase or two. Market commentary for educational purposes, not investment advice. About the Guest Jim Reber joined The Baker Group in 2026 after more than 30 years at ICBA Securities, the last two decades as president and CEO. The Baker Group is now ICBA Securities' endorsed broker-dealer. He spends much of the year at state association conventions, sits on the Barret School of Banking Board of Regents, and teaches investment management on the Barret faculty. About the Host Byron Earnheart is Programming Director for the Barret School of Banking in Memphis, TN and hosts Main Street Banking, the only podcast solely devoted to community banks. He brings 15+ years of financial services experience, including 11 years in banking in roles ranging from teller to branch management. Outside work he plays guitar and sings with Delta Heart, writes music, cooks, and reads. Contact Information Barret School of Banking · 650 East Parkway South, Memphis, TN 38104 · (901) 321-4000 · barret@barretbanking.org Privacy and CPE Statement

October 21, 202629 min

Fourth Generation, $6.5 Billion: Peter Stenehjem on Staying Relevant

Peter Stenehjem is back for his second appearance. He is CEO of First International Bank & Trust, a fourth-generation family bank founded in 1910 that now operates in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Arizona at about $6.5 billion in assets. It took the bank 100 years to reach its first billion, in 2010. Stenehjem took over from his father in 2025. He answers the “how do you stay relevant” question in football terms: a disciplined offense. That means core deposits, selective loan growth, protected margins, and growth only when it’s profitable. On people, the rule is the one his grandfather and father used: hire for attitude, train for skill, and let people make decisions, even wrong ones, as long as they adapt fast. He also explained the bank’s two less typical lines. One is a payments subsidiary that he says moved about $125 billion across 60 million transactions last year. The other is a mineral management and reserves-based lending practice that came out of the bank’s western North Dakota roots.

September 2, 202627 min

Communiversity — What Pendleton Community Bank and WVU Tech Built

The college in your market is probably one of the largest employers on your commercial list, and most community banks have no relationship with it. T. Ramon Stuart, president of WVU Tech, and Bill Loving at Pendleton Community Bank built one anyway, out of a lunch for three that came to about sixteen dollars. They call it Communiversity — the community is the university, the university is the community. Key Points Start with the payroll: 309 full-time employees at WVU Tech roughly 849 across a year, counting part-time and contract work "Imagine if the majority of your deposits from payroll went into a community bank." Stuart calls colleges "the modern-day factories of town." Most of his own profession dislikes the comparison. He makes it anyway. Why the community bank is the right partner: It can look under the hood. A loan without clean comps still gets made, because the bank knows the borrower and knows the employer. And students who bank locally come back for the first mortgage — the cheers effect, where you go because somebody knows your name. Financial literacy is the way in: Most people learn about money after the mistakes, once credit is damaged and the rate is higher. First-generation students are the clearest case. On the credit card tables that used to line campus walkways — hand someone three thousand dollars who has never had a dollar and call it a free line — "I think that's very predatory." The co-branded card, and what it did: A Tech employee was checking out at a local business when the cashier recognized the card. She was a Tech graduate with an engineering degree working retail, because she had never managed to navigate the job market. They exchanged information. Less than a month later she had an engineering job. What holds it up: "Nobody really wants to talk finances." And inertia is the real competitor — if you open the app and the money is there, you do not go looking for a new bank. What To Do Monday Call the campus and offer to teach a class. Byron: "It's like asking a teacher or a professor, hey, can I come talk to a class? Absolutely, that's one time I don't have to lecture." Stuart's own reaction is puzzlement that this is not already everywhere: "It just fits, it flows." More on the initiative: [CONFIRM URL — wvutech.edu/communiversity] About the Guest T. Ramon Stuart, Ph.D. is president of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, where he has led the campus since January 2023. He is from McDowell County, holds degrees from West Virginia University and a doctorate from Ohio University, and became a college professor at 23. He previously served as president of Clayton State University and provost at Fort Valley State University, both in Georgia.

August 19, 202619 min

CRA Is Moving Again — What's Actually in the Proposal

The FDIC and OCC have a CRA proposal out. The Federal Reserve hasn't signed on. Shaun Harms joins the show to separate what's in the text from what's circulating on LinkedIn. Harms is a principal and regional sector leader over the consulting practice at Forvis Mazars, concentrated in compliance and BSA. He's about 20 years out of the graduate school and now sits on the Barret banking faculty. He also runs the quarterly compliance roundtable. His read: this is a threshold rewrite, not a rebuild. The deposit-based assessment area that drove most of the angst in the rescinded rule is gone — it's the ordinary assessment area again. What's left is a tiering change. As Harms describes the proposal, banks under $1 billion fall under the small bank test, banks from $1 to $10 billion get an easier test with no reporting, and banks above $10 billion carry on as they do now. The lending test stays the core of it. The piece he expects to cause real work is the community development side. The proposal would cap the share of a CD activity that can go to administrative and overhead costs at 15%, which means banks need documentation to prove they're under it. He calls that the politically charged part of the rule and the one thing he'd flag as genuinely new effort. Everything else on the CD test, he thinks, gets less subjective — more examples, tighter parameters, easier to support a qualification. Two things he pushes back on. First, "majority of your lending" has never meant a 50/50 ratio. He walks through Delta banks running 40% in-area ratios and examining out satisfactory, because the loan demand simply wasn't there and the data showed it. Second, the argument that relief will pull community banks out of their communities. Banks don't sponsor the Little League team for the credit; they take the credit because they were going to sponsor it anyway. Where he's honest about not knowing: what the Fed does. He'd spoken with an FDIC member the day before recording, and the answer there was the same — everyone's waiting. His advice to banks in the meantime is status quo. Nothing has changed yet, and the last time two agencies moved without the third, the industry got an unequal playing field and a do-over.

July 29, 202627 min

Sonata Bank: Culture, AI, Payments...and much more!

I really like getting to tell the stories of interesting banks I find along the way. Sonata Bank is one of those banks that's just a cool story. The CEO, Wendell Bontrager, is an interesting guy and I really enjoyed our chat. I think you will to.

July 15, 202632 min

CommunityBankers.AI: New Conversations around Treasury Management and AI

There's a lot of "meat and potatoes" on today's episode. A lot of points made and shifts in how to think. It's a lot for one episode if I'm being honest. But, that's ok. It's the start of a new way of thinking in my opinion. I hope you enjoy listening to Laura and Cory discussing their new initiative https://www.communitybankers.ai/ and their new perspectives on AI and treasury management. I hope it'll make you think new thoughts because it's been changing my opinion on quite a few things.

July 1, 202641 min

Steward Leadership and a New Book from Eric Alexander

Any chance to chat with Eric Alexander is going to be a good one but when he told me he had written a book about Steward Leadership, I knew we had to get him on. I don't want to spend too much time talking because the episode is that full of great insights from Eric. Go ahead and pre-order the book here on his website: https://sixarrowsconsulting.com/book/

May 15, 202612 min

Main Street Banking Economic Update May 2026

With Barret Grad School around the corner, the economy still continues to turn. A lot of news in the markets over the past week and when that happens...you already know...we bring in Jim Reber to break it down for us!

March 20, 202621 min

Barret DeepDive: Practical AI For Community Banks

This past week, we put on a webinar about Practical AI for Community Banks. The engagement from the industry was amazing and it definitely won't be the last one we do. This episode is the AI summary of the webinar that I thought was absolutely amazing itself. If you want to view the webinar and get the handouts, check out https://barretbanking.org/practical-ai-for-community-banks/

January 21, 202640 min

Revio Insight and BankerBounty: Leveling the Playing Field

In this episode of the Main Street Banking podcast, we sit down with industry veterans Brian Bauer, CEO of Revio Insight, and Randy Goggins, CEO of Banker Bounty. The trio discusses an innovative new partnership that combines Revio’s advanced AI data analytics with Banker Bounty’s robust referral tracking systems. By leveraging real-time customer data and actionable insights, community banks can now identify untapped opportunities in their existing portfolios and empower their staff to convert those leads into meaningful new accounts. The conversation dives deep into the challenges community banks face from larger institutions and fintech competitors like Chime and SoFi. Bauer and Goggins explain how their integrated solution levels the playing field, moving beyond mere "propensity" to deliver factual, high-quality leads directly to relationship bankers. For more information, you can reach Brian Bauer at brian@getrevio.ai or visit revioinsight.com. Randy Goggins can be reached at rg@bankerbounty.com or via phone at 205-705-2716, and more information is available at bankerbounty.com. As always, many thanks to ICBA Securities and the Barret School of Banking