Editor’s Note: CNY Executive Q&A is a feature appearing regularly in The Central New York Business Journal, authored by guest writer Jeff Knauss, who is co-founder of his own digital-marketing firm. In each edition, Knauss chats with a different executive at a Central New York business or nonprofit, with the interview transcript appearing in a conversational Q&A format.

In this issue, I speak with Stephen Gorczynski, who is the administrative vice president of commercial banking for the Central New York region at M&T Bank. He leads the bank’s commercial middle-market team in this area and is based in M&T’s Syracuse office. Gorczynski lives in Manlius, with his wife and two children. M&T Bank ranks number one in deposit market share in the 16-county Central New York area. 

JEFF: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got here.

STEVE: I was born and raised down the road in Utica, in the Mohawk Valley region. I went to Catholic schools out there, and arrived in Syracuse via Le Moyne College. I’m an accountant, a CPA by trade. I went through the accounting program at Le Moyne. My first job was with KPMG, and at that time, the Syracuse office had a large contingent of banking clients. This was in the late 1980s and early 90s when there was a savings and loan crisis. A lot of banks in the country, including KPMG clients, had problems with their loan portfolio. A lot of savings banks tried to get into commercial lending and didn’t do a very good job. As an auditor coming in at this time, your primary focus was the collectability of the loan portfolio. Along the way, I developed an expertise in credit underwriting and effectively learned how to lend by watching other people’s mistakes, I had a unique perspective.

It was really interesting. I was a young guy — around 23 years old — and I’d be interviewing a veteran loan officer trying to subtly ask him/her, “What were you thinking when you made this loan?” I’m reading the file and it’s obviously a bad situation. Finally, one day a lender stopped me and said, “Listen, the numbers are what they are, but before you make a judgment on me and whether I’m a good lender or not, you need to know that you’re not seeing even half the story.” In retrospect, his point was a valid one: while the numbers tell a picture, you also have to get out there and understand the people behind the business. Numbers are important, but character and experience still matter. You need to understand how they have operated over the long term, how well they know their business when they walk the shop floor with you, how they interact with their people, what their reputation is in the community, how they conduct themselves in non-business settings, etc. It was just a sidebar discussion, but it really drove home how dynamic the job of a banker really is, and got me thinking about banking as a possible career.

I’d spent three or four years in public accounting and while I gained a ton of experience over a short timeframe, I didn’t really see it as a long-term career for me. One of my assigned clients at that time was OnBank and Trust Co., and I got to know its senior management through an engagement where I was the lead auditor on the due diligence for one of the bank’s acquisitions. 

We began talking, one thing led to another, and they offered me a position in their commercial banking group. I first spent a year in credit analysis and loan review — learning the portfolio. And then they put me out on the sales frontline as a relationship manager. That was probably the biggest adjustment for me, as I had no appreciation whatsoever about the demands of the sales side of the business. I mean, I honestly thought you sat there, the phone rings, and a company calls you saying, “Hey, I need a $5 million loan. Can you help me?” That’s not how it works. You’ve got to get out there and beat the bushes.

I remember clearly: I started my sales role on a Monday, and by Tuesday at lunch time I had exhausted all my contacts. I had a grand total of eight of them and they all said the same thing. “Hey, I think it’s a great career opportunity for you. You’ve got the right personality. I wish you luck, but….we already have a bank and things are going okay and it’s really a hassle to change. But give me a call every six months and we’ll be sure to see you.” So, it took me all of eight phone calls to realize I may have made a major career mistake. I ultimately survived, of course, but that early experience gave the accountant in me a crash course on how bankers really operate. 

Overall, breaking into the industry was tough because I came in as the new guy and none of the senior lenders would give me any of their prospects before I proved myself. So I went to the periphery of our market place and rolled up my sleeves.

I was still young, by banker standards, but I had that CPA designation (which I maintain to this day). It gave me credibility with the people I was meeting with, some of whom were more than twice my age. Ultimately, we had another lender leave and I ended up inheriting his portfolio with maintenance responsibilities. But for the first six months it was purely business development. That was hard, but the baptism by fire really served me well.

M&T acquired OnBank and Trust shortly after that and I became an M&T employee, still in a relationship manager capacity. I left and worked for another bank in 2002 for an eight-year period and returned to M&T in 2010 as leader of our commercial middle-market team. I’ve been working here locally since I started my banking career in 1993, so I have been fortunate to get to cover Central New York where I live now, and the Mohawk Valley, where I grew up. 

JEFF: How many people do you oversee at this time?

STEVE: We have eight people in our division.

JEFF: Were you always inclined to take leadership roles since you were a kid?

STEVE: It just kind of happened and probably started at home. I’m the oldest of four, so at times I had to look after my younger brother and sisters. There’s about an 11-year gap between myself and my youngest sister, so I always had a lot of babysitting duties. I think that just naturally instilled a sense of responsibility in me at a pretty young age. I have good parents, a solid upbringing, and a Catholic education. All reinforced the values of responsibility and giving back, which I think are the core tenets of being a leader. I didn’t necessarily want to be a leader per se, but I think I always had those quiet traits that grew in me over time. I went to college at Le Moyne and their message of giving back and their commitment to social justice was a strong one — all those things during my formative years had an impact. 

JEFF: If I went out and talked to your team, how would they describe your leadership style?

STEVE: I try to be transparent. I always try to strike a balance between pushing people to get results — that’s my job after all — and being empathetic to what they are going through. It’s difficult, detailed work that we do. It’s demanding, and while the job needs to get done, I understand these are human beings that are doing it. I would hope they would say my leadership style is fair. They understand what’s expected of them and I never ask them to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself, so I like to think about being a “player-coach” in that regard. There’s a lot to accomplish in banking. Again, there’s the sales side and there’s the credit side, and a lot goes into both. We have a good team of hard workers who are dedicated to our customers. They are self-motivated so I’m just there to keep things between the guard rails.

JEFF: When you’re looking for new employees to hire for your team, what kind of qualities do you seek?

STEVE: I look at those traits that brought me success and I try to look for those same characteristics in other people. A good work ethic is probably at the top of the list — also perseverance and dedication. In banking, it’s often a long-term sales cycle and it’s not for the faint of heart. You need to have that long-term outlook and be mentally tough at times. We hear “no” a lot more than we hear “yes.” So, I look for somebody who can live with that and still put forth a good quality effort. You also need someone with a balanced skillset — someone with the personality to not only excel at the sales side, but also the technical acumen to be able to manage the credit side. Someone who can work with customers to generate loans, but also ensure they are high-quality loans. I think that’s why good bankers are generally hard to find.

We also want to make sure somebody fits within the team. We have a very cohesive team and you have to be careful not to disrupt that. You can’t have it suddenly become about a single individual achieving personal goals. That’s when the team suffers. We really emphasize the team here and that’s critical. 

JEFF: Talk a little bit more about culture. What do you feel differentiates your bank’s culture? How do you shape and mold that culture?

STEVE: I think a culture reflects how you conduct yourself over the long haul through both good times and bad, and it can be difficult sometimes to put your finger on it. I’d like to think the unofficial motto here at M&T is “do the right thing.” Find a way to do the right thing, no matter what the situation — and that’s not always easy. There are a lot of “things” to balance in our business. We’re a public company, so we have shareholders to whom we answer. And, we have customers to answer to, as well as regulators, employees, and the community. Striking a balance that keeps each one of these unique constituencies satisfied is not always easy, but I have always thought that if you do the right thing, good results will follow in due course. And I believe this is a sentiment shared by my colleagues at the bank throughout our region, especially those with longer tenures. Maintaining balance and applying common sense in decision-making within the environment in which we operate, which of course is never static, is something that we really strive to do as a bank. It’s our job locally to keep that culture alive and strong in Central New York. 

JEFF: Tell us about the community banking model and how that’s such an important part of your culture. 

STEVE: The community banking model, the model of M&T, is a little different. Relative to our competition, we have a lot of feet on the street in each of our markets. We try to focus on local contact, from in-market senior executives, to front line officers, to the back office. Our customer service is all local. It would be very easy to centralize that and go to the 1-800 number concept. Some banks have done that with reasonable success. We just think that it’s a little bit different and a little bit better when you have it done locally. 

Ours is a people-to-people business. It’s relationship driven, especially the middle-market business. It’s not cookie cutter. It’s customized in terms of how we conduct credit underwriting and make credit decisions. We feel it’s important to have a dedicated relationship manager for all our accounts that are local and in market with sufficient back up — which would be myself and my boss, CNY Regional President Allen Naples. It’s a distinguishing factor. I think customers appreciate the kind of attention that we give in the form of really intense and reliable service.

JEFF: Tell us about your involvement with nonprofits and community organizations.

STEVE: When I describe my job to people, I talk about three areas — credit, sales, and community involvement. As a senior officer, the community involvement aspect is simply something I am expected to do. It’s actually in my performance appraisal. Community involvement is a hallmark of M&T, giving back to those communities that give us so much. Whether it involves volunteer time or corporate donations, we strive to act like we’re headquartered in each of our respective markets. Again, it gets back to the fact that it’s the right thing to do. 

Presently, I serve on the local United Way board and have been chair since April of last of year. Leading that organization takes a fair amount of my time, but again, the bank doesn’t think twice when I have to go to a board meeting or take a phone call. It’s just understood.

I’m also on the finance committee for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, chair of the membership committee of CenterState CEO, and I also sit on an advisory council for St. Joseph’s Hospital. Keeping all that in balance is not always easy, but it is always rewarding.          

About the author: Jeff Knauss is co-founder of the digital marketing agency, Digital Hyve, and has always had a passion for learning about successful executives and their stories. He also is a current board member of Byrne Dairy, the Food Bank of CNY, and Loretto Foundation. For more on Knauss, check out www.digitalhyve.com.

OWEGO — Courtyard Gifts, a jewelry and eclectic gift shop, recently moved to Owego after more than four decades in downtown Binghamton. 

It’s a move the shop’s current owner expects to significantly boost revenue because Owego’s retail environment is a better fit for the shop.

Bruce Potter has owned Courtyard Gifts for the past 21 years of its 43-year existence — selling fine jewelry and unique gift items at 163 Washington St. in downtown Binghamton. Facing a steady decline of more than half of the store’s revenue over the past two decades, Potter shuttered the Binghamton store in July and opened in Owego on Aug. 1.

Courtyard Gifts formally opened at 165 Main St. in Owego on Sept. 20 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Tioga County Chamber of Commerce.

 “Binghamton was the right place for many, many years and when we first started we were doing really — and I mean really — well,” Potter tells CNYBJ. “But then business continued to drop off.”

Potter attributes Courtyard Gifts’ decline in part to a shifting local economy that catered toward students and the rise of online shopping, which has been chipping away at small mom-and-pop shops for years. In Owego, Potter hopes he won’t be beholden to a transient student population with little disposable income.

“Students are attracted to the restaurants, but they will not attract business for the stores,” Potter says, noting that most students either shop online or in their hometowns during breaks in the school year.

Potter decided to move into a bigger space in neighboring Tioga County, which he says has a better retail setting and feels “like a Norman Rockwell painting.” Potter expects to double his sales in the Owego location.

The new store is 1,200 square feet, twice the 600 square feet he had in Binghamton. Potter hired Binghamton–based contractor, Doug Hoffman, for renovations, which he funded with company cash.

Courtyard Gifts sells high-end jewelry and hand-crafted gift items that are either unusual or nostalgic. The merchandise includes hats, lamps, chairs, costumes, necklaces and even lifelike manikins.

Potter says he does not yet know how many employees he will hire in Owego. At one point, Courtyard Gifts had four full-time employees. But by the time the store closed in Binghamton, Potter did not have the revenue to support a single employee. He ran the store by himself while his wife volunteered whenever she could, he says.

Before purchasing Courtyard Gifts in 1996, Potter was a buyer for Endicott Johnson, a famous shoe manufacturer that had been based in Broome County. Courtyard Gifts’ previous owner, Peter Altman, had owned the business since its start in 1973 in downtown Binghamton.