Debbie Shelton considers the INB Montvale Branch like “her first child.” After joining the newly established bank in 1999, her first job was to establish a Springfield branch at the then-new Montvale Commons.
And like a kid cements you to a community, INB’s Montvale Branch cemented INB to the community.
In a 2016 interview Debbie said, “People don’t leave Montvale,” referring to both bank employees and customers. “Part of the job is to get to know your customers,” she says. “When we first opened, we worked hard getting people excited to be part of this bank. We wanted to help make the community a better place to live. We wanted to help grow with our customers’ families.”
On a personal level, Debbie, who then served as Montvale branch manager, very much wanted INB to be a respected name. She’d been part of “big bank” banking in the late 80s and early 90s, and she didn’t like it. When she was asked to join INB and, as she put it, “help customers again,” she didn’t have to think long about her decision even though she had young children still at home. “I just knew it couldn’t go wrong,” she says. “I wanted to be part of the winning team.”
And that was easy given the team she was not only working for, but the team she was allowed to build. “That was exciting,” she says. “We hand-picked staff people who are still here today . . . We created a dream bank.”
Debbie noted it was “a dream” to get to set up the Montvale facility. She had a hand in everything from the way the teller lines and offices were set up to hiring an artist to create artwork for the space.
Just as business was slow at the downtown location when it first opened, so was Montvale. And then it happened. “One day we looked out and saw a car in every drive-up lane! On my gosh, the drive-up was full!!” Debbie knew they’d found success.
Because Debbie was so good at what she did, she was eventually asked to move to the bank’s Wabash location in 2005. Before retiring in 2024, she stepped in to manage both the Wabash and Montvale locations.
Expanded Mission in 2021
By 2020, INB needed a new space to serve customers from. We didn’t need to look far. Pat Phalen, INB executive vice president, noted that thanks to some vacancies in the property, INB was able to expand in it’s already high-trafficked branch on Chatham Road.
Today’s INB at 2601 Chatham Road, Springfield, is both a branch and headquarters to INB’s Wealth team. Because Wealth associates often work directly with customers, the ready access to parking and high visibility of the location made the decision to choose to expand the site easy as well.
In 2021, Debbie was back to serving as Montvale branch manager. She said then that she remembers thinking in 1999 that her team was “part of something big.” She added: “Now we’ll be there to not only witness what happens with our retail operations, but also to see our Wealth team do great things for our customers.”
Our Montvale location is now the work-home to about a dozen members of the Wealth Team. The space added in 2021 includes offices, shared work space, and a large conference room.
Our Wealth team is made up of experts in:
- Business Consulting
- Estate Planning
- Health Savings Accounts
- Insurance
- Non-Banking Investments*
- Retirement Planning
- Tax Preparation
- Trust
*Offering general securities through INFINEX INVESTMENTS, INC. Member: FINRA/SIPC Investment and insurance products and services are offered through INFINEX INVESTMENTS, INC.