Banker Joe Davidson remembers a time when a handshake could almost serve as a customer’s collateral.
After 49 years in banking, Davidson’s handshake may come with a check on someone’s credit report, but he still sees banking as a transaction between people you know.
“You just knew people,” said Davidson, who was honored with cake and a party last week for his tenure at the only full time job he’s ever held. “We still know people, but that’s how banking is these days. It may not have been with just a handshake, but it was pretty close.”
The paperwork and background checks involved in a loan transaction aren’t the only changes Davidson, market president for the Byers, Texas, branch of First Capital Bank of Texas, has seen in nearly half a century.
Davidson, who remembers maintaining the daily ledger by hand, has had a key to the bank building in Byers since his first day on the job, Aug. 23, 1971, when he began to work for a legend and role model, Joe Parker Sr., owner of what was then the First National Bank of Byers, which opened in 1907.
Having just graduated from Midwestern University — prior to the addition of middle name of “State” — Davidson interviewed for a job, given only one piece of advice.
“Dick Gaines, in charge of loans at the bank, told me, ‘Before you meet with Mr. Parker, you might want to shave those sideburns,’ ” he recalled. “It was the ’70s, after all. I told him I’d get a burr.”
For the second interview, sideburns gone, Davidson was able to bring his wife, Donna.
Parker asked Davidson when he could start.
“I think that was on a Thursday,” Davidson said. “I said, ‘How about Monday?’ “
He later worked for “Joe Sr.’s” son, Joe Parker Jr., whom he also admires greatly.
“I’d like to brag especially on the Parker family,” he said. “Here I was, fresh out of college, and they took me and showed me everything. I like to say I went to the Joe Parker School of Banking.
“Joe Sr. did things in a way that, if he believed in you, if you were hard working, he would go out of his way for you.”
Banks were smaller back then, Davidson added, simpler, when money went farther.
“We’ve grown tremendously,” having been bought by Fidelity Bank and then, most recently, FirstCapital Bank of Texas. “We were country and wanted it that way,” a small community with a small community bank.
Davidson stressed that he has appreciated all involved in the bank’s transformations, regardless of the name changes.
“I’ve worked with some great people,” he said, “42 years with one bank, the last seven with the bigger banks. We’ve kept things going on as usual, and the end result is the same. You’re still dealing with people.
“How you get there changes, but people are the same.”
There’s not a lot of turnover at the Byers location, Davidson said, as he lists the names of workers who’ve served decades at the bank.
“We are still a bank mostly for local area farmers and ranchers,” said Davidson, who sees children and grandchildren of his first customers walk into the bank for life-changing loans.
A native of Bellevue, Texas, where a road that intersects with U.S. 287 bears the family’s last name, Davidson is what his colleagues in banking call a dying breed.
“He’s one of the nicest persons I have ever worked with,” said Tommy McCullough, vice chair of FirstCapital Bank of Texas, “always considerate of another person’s feelings.”
McCullough, who said Davidson has worked at the same location with three banks for all 49 years, recalled how another banker describes him.
“If you have a problem with Joe, then you may want to look at what you’re doing wrong.”
Byers may not have been where Davidson was born, but the small Clay County community has treated him like family, especially during some difficult times, since he and his wife moved there in 1972.
Donna and Joe lost son Coby in 1991, when the young man was 16, in a freak accident. And this week, Joe will have been without his beloved wife for eight years, losing her to breast cancer in 2012. Donna worked at the bank for 17 years, starting as a bank teller in 1995 and progressing to assistant vice president of teller operations and accounts payable, before her death.
“I could not have gone through that without the love and support of people in Byers and in this bank,” said Davidson. “This community has been a blessing, especially when you’re working with good people.
“I’ve had a good life, with a lot of friends, people I sure thing the world of.”