Doug Hultquist and Mike Bauer, at right, work their shovels during the 1993 groundbreaking for Quad City Bank & Trust in Bettendorf. CREDIT QCBT
When the Quad Cities experienced a series of bank acquisitions in the 1990s, local banker Mike Bauer and tax accountant Doug Hultquist seized the chance to fill that resulting hometown banking void. More than 30 years ago, and despite warnings against doing so, they and other supporters set about raising the $4 million they needed […]
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When the Quad Cities experienced a series of bank acquisitions in the 1990s, local banker Mike Bauer and tax accountant Doug Hultquist seized the chance to fill that resulting hometown banking void. More than 30 years ago, and despite warnings against doing so, they and other supporters set about raising the $4 million they needed to launch Quad City Bank & Trust in Bettendorf. Along with its parent company QCR Holdings, Inc., the community bank has been driven by relationships and fueled by prioritizing customer service since it first opened its doors on Jan. 7, 1994, its founders say.Today, QCBT’s current and past leaders are not only celebrating their pearl anniversary and a fully remodeled Davenport location, they are predicting more growth ahead for a bank that now boasts $2.8 billion in assets and has the largest deposit market share in the Quad Cities area. This year, too, parent QCRH, currently headquartered in Moline, also is nearing a next-level $10 billion in assets mark and getting ready to break ground on a new home. (See related story here).Over the past 30 years, Quad City Bank & Trust has grown from a single Bettendorf location to a people-driven economic powerhouse, according to its leadership.The bank’s CEO John Anderson is among those celebrating QCBT’s growth in this anniversary year. He told a crowd gathered at QCBT’s remodeled Brady Street location on Jan. 24, “When you look back to that first day 30 years ago and we were about $4 or $5 million after day one and today we’re the No. 1 community bank in the Quad Cities with over 20% market share. How cool it is to be a part of that?”He added, “When I got the opportunity to join Quad City Bank I jumped at it and I was thrilled.” The QCBT team that was in place when he came there, he said, was “considered the cream of the crop, and for me to get the honor to be able to be considered in that group, wow, that was like a dream come true for me.”
Loss of local banks key
The idea for a new community bank was born shortly after four Quad Cities community banks were sold within an 18-month period, Mr. Hultquist and Mr. Bauer said. The institutions were: First National Bank of Rock Island, First National Bank of Moline, First Trust and Savings of Bettendorf, and Davenport Bank and Trust. The Davenport Bank was, by far, the largest and most influential, they said.
Vic Quinn, then chief operating officer of Quad City Bank & Trust, checks out the view from inside the bank during construction in 1993. PHOTOS BY QCBT
This dog-themed art is on display in the employee breakroom of the Quad City Bank & Trust branch at 4500 N. Brady St., Davenport. QCBT welcomed guests to tour the building during a January ribbon-cutting at the remodeled branch.
Guests gather for a celebration on Jan 24 marking the grand reopening of the Quad City Bank & Trust’s branch at 4500 N. Brady St., Davenport.
CREDIT DAVE THOMPSON
It’s also where QCBT co-founder Mr. Bauer worked as head of correspondent banking. When the Davenport Bank’s sale to Norwest Bank was finalized, Mr. Bauer took over for a time as president of Norwest’s Davenport location. But he missed working for a locally owned and operated bank.He shared those concerns and others with Mr. Hultquist, then a certified public accountant with KPMG, later McGladrey & Pullen. Mr. Bauer met the longtime Rock Island resident while the accountant was doing tax audits for banks from an office in the Davenport Bank building. In addition to sharing a floor, the two men had many mutual clients and quickly became friends.While playing golf together in Galena, Illinois, in 1992, Mr. Hultquist said they realized “there’s really a unique opportunity right now for a local bank and that’s when and where we decided we were going to give this a shot.”The following year was a busy one as a growing staff worked out of a few small offices in Bettendorf on loan from Happy Joe’s in the months leading up to the 1994 opening. In addition to raising startup funds, QCBT leaders recruited an initial shareholder group, won regulatory approval, built the bank’s first branch in Bettendorf, went public and persuaded 18 employees to join the cause, Mr. Hultquist said.
Cold start, warm welcome
The new bank’s long-awaited opening day at its first location at 2118 Middle Road, Bettendorf, came on a frigid Jan. 7, 1994, morning. The wind chill was about 30 degrees below zero and occasional snowflakes were falling when founders and staff arrived early for work.“The employees were not too happy with me because I convinced the park system to let us park across the street so that our parking lot would be available to customers,” Mr. Hultquist recalled. “We didn’t know how many we’d have and so our employees who arrived early in the morning that day had to walk.” Due to the weather, many of those employees feared that first-day turnout would be low. Instead, they were kept hopping in order to serve the 300 new customers who crowded into the bank that day.“The first day we opened we were overwhelmed with customers and so from that point on we became more confident we made the right decision to go forward,” Vic Quinn, chief operating officer when QCBT launched, said in the bank’s 30th anniversary video. It’s available on the QCBT website at qcbt.com.Among QCBT’s charter customers that day was Bev Phelan. In the bank’s Winter 1999 “Notes of Interest” newsletter she noted: “I don’t know why I braved the sub-zero weather to make it to Quad City Bank & Trust’s opening back in 1994. I wanted to be with this bank. I liked its determination and its efforts to be service-oriented. I also liked that they called me by name.”That personal service hasn’t changed, bank leaders say, as QCBT employees continue to live by the same key mantras professed by its founders more than three decades ago. Mr. Hultquist recalled, for example, that Mike Bauer often said, “‘The team with the best players wins,’ and we had a really unique opportunity to hire the best players in the market.”In the video, Mr. Quinn said “we wanted to treat the customers right. We wanted them to obviously trust and respect us as well as we had to trust and respect them.”He also said that QCBT staff knew “if we take care of the clients, everything else will be fine.”Longtime employees appearing on that anniversary party video in January said the bank succeeded because it had the best customers. Mr. Bauer agreed, but added, “We had the best customers because we had the best employees and they followed the employees.”
QCBT founders aim high
From the start, those founders dreamed big and aimed high. That included immediately launching a correspondent banking department. Amy J. Braack, QCBT’s current senior vice president for correspondent banking, explained that particular upstream banking relationship this way: “Just as consumers and small businesses need an outlet for financial services, so too do many community banks across the upper Midwest. Community banks have both depository and borrowing needs as well and that’s what we provide.”She told the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal in an email, “In its simplest terms, we bank the banks! Our primary correspondent banking footprint includes around 200 financial institutions across Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin.”“We were the smallest of all of our bank customers,” Mr. Bauer said in the anniversary celebration video. “They’re all looking at us kind of funny like, ‘Really, you really think you can do this?’ And you look back today, now 30 years later, that was a very fortuitous decision it turned out.”QCBT also struck paydirt when its founders immediately created a trust department.“Most of our banker friends thought we were nuts for starting a correspondent banking department,” Mr. Hultquist said. “That’s not something new banks do. They thought we were nuts for starting a trust department; that’s something old banks do and thankfully we did both and they’ve really added to the size and profitability of Quad City Bank.”So have the additional locations that QCBT has opened in the Quad Cities, beginning with the Brady Street operation in Davenport. It launched in 1996, Mr. Hultquist said, “so Davenport residents, who refused to travel all the way to Bettendorf, would bank with us.”Later, the company bought the former Velie Mansion on Moline’s Seventh Street to create its first Illinois facility. The spot was desirable, he added, because it was near John Deere Road and the Rock Island/Moline border. Later, QCBT added Utica Ridge and Five Points locations in Davenport.Now it’s planning a new location on land it bought earlier this year near the busy TBK Bank Sports Complex in north Bettendorf.
Employees the stars
Throughout it all, QCBT employees have remained the focus, leaders say.In fact, even as QCBT has worked to remain a community bank of choice, its leaders have taken an innovative, often non-traditional approach to employees and management. That includes creating a sabbatical program inspired by the program offered to professors at Augustana College in Rock Island, where Mr. Hultquist is an alumnus and has served as a board member and board chair.Emotional intelligence training taught by Mr. Hultquist also is a feature for QCBT employees.And though employees the bank hires are joining a financial institution, he said “from time to time I thought it was healthy to hire nonbankers just to get a different perspective.” Many of those nontraditional employees have become company leaders.Among them is Laura “Divot” Ekizian. She was the women’s golf coach at St. Ambrose in Davenport when Mr. Hultquist first hired her. Today, she’s the president and chief relationship officer at QCBT and recently was selected for the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal’s Women of Influence.She also recently led and completed the extensive three-year, multi-million-dollar remodel project – completed by Russell – at the bank’s Brady Street location. It was unveiled at a Quad Cities Chamber ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, Jan. 24. That’s also where QCBT launched the formal celebration of its birthday, and discussed the future of a still-growing institution fueled by the bank’s 158 employees.“The people we have and the talent that we have within our walls is driving our business and our business model and then the fact that our customers keep showing up every day and rewarding us with more of their business is something our team is very grateful for each and every day,” Ms. Ekizian said during the celebration. “You don’t take that stuff for granted.”She added, “There is no doubt in my mind that in the next five to 10 years we will not only bring more people in to share that talent with us, but (we will) watch their work happen and see it unfold, that’s the best gift of them all.”Mr. Anderson called the bank’s talented and hard-working employees the “secret sauce” behind its recent successful renovation and other successes throughout QCBT’s history. “This team makes dreams happen every day,” he said.
At-a-glance: Quad City Bank & Trust
Launched on Jan. 7, 1994, with $4 million in assets.
Today, QCBT boasts $2.4 billion in assets and is No. 1 in deposit market share in the Quad Cities. For more information, qcbt.com
Employs 158 bankers and staff across its QC locations.
Those QC employees volunteered more than 7,500 hours in the community in 2023.
QCBT also donated more than $500,000 to nearly 100 local organizations last year.
Quad City Bank & Trust is one of four wholly owned subsidiary banks within its parent QCR Holdings, Inc.
QCRH has 36 locations in Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois.
It had $8.5 billion in assets, $6.5 billion in loans, and $6.5 billion in deposits at the end of 2023. For additional information, visit www.qcrh.com.
QCRH also engages in commercial leasing through its wholly owned subsidiary, m2 Equipment Finance LLC, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
