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Justin Brady: From the Jethro’s BBQ studio, this is the Iowa Business Podcast. What’s the state of community banking? You’ve seen, you’ve seen some of those bigger boys come into Iowa, some of the big national cha- Are they hurting the local banks? Are they helping the local banks? Are they having little to no effect? What’s the state of lending? Where’s all the money going? That’s what we’re getting it in, going to get into today with Jason Herrboldt, the brand new CEO of Bank Iowa. Jason, thanks for coming on the show, and congrats on the role.

Jason Herrboldt: Well, thank you for having me, Justin. We’re excited to be here. Excited to be in Des Moines, excited to be in

Justin Brady: We’re gonna talk about your history, we’re gonna talk about the state of banking and all that fun stuff. But before we do, thank you so much to Dentons Davis Brown for sponsoring this show. They don’t just sponsor, they actually bring their expertise to the show, which we really appreciate. They were talking about H-1Bs and how Iowa is uniquely situated to get around the $100,000. It’s kind of fascinating. Talking about talent retention and how to retain really high level talent in this state by looking kind of where things are going. They, they have a really good bead on that. And then M&A deals in 2026, what’s the state of those? And of course, they gave us a 2026 legislative overview and all the details. All that is available at iowapodcast.com/business. Jason, like I said, thank you so much for coming in here. I’m not gonna say who the larger institutions are, but some people have seen some very, very big organizations plopping some buildings into their communities.

Jason Herrboldt: Mm-hmm.

Justin Brady: Is … Do we care as Iowans? Should we care? Is this hurting our community banks? Do you pretty much like, “Eh, doesn’t hurt us at all. It actually helps us.” Where are we at with that?

Jason Herrboldt: Well, well, one, thank you for the question, Justin, and I’ve been thinking about that k- kind of question for really most of my career. Uh, what should people think when they see a large organization, whether it’s a bank, a manufacturing company, whatever it is? They should be happy that somebody is willing, that a business is willing to invest and hire people in their communities. So that’s first and foremost. If, if an economy is dynamic and a population is dynamic, businesses wanna be there. Okay? So let’s start with the positive, and that is positive. If people wanna open banks in their community, that means that they see something positive that’s gonna be good for them, and that should thereby be good for communities. Uh, do I get threatened by it? I don’t, and it’s not because I’m arrogant and think that the c- uh, and think that community banks are always gonna win. It’s not a default answer that they’re always gonna win. Sometimes they lose, sometimes they win. But I do believe that when competition is ripe, it does elevate the game And competition is real. It’s been going on not just in banking. Every industry, every person that listens to your podcast is competing against competitors that wanna take some of their pie. Um, and when new organizations show up, new people show up, it does tend to make us all better if we react in a way that’s productive

Justin Brady: Rising tide raises sh-

Jason Herrboldt: Exactly. Um, but here’s where I would say, and this is what I would say that your listeners and people should understand. When people make a deposit in a bank, that deposit just doesn’t go into thin air. It doesn’t just sit in a vault. It gets deployed into businesses, homeowners- Mm-hmm people that are trying to buy a vehicle, people that are trying to produce or, or, or buy things for their families and for their businesses. It goes and gets deployed into their communities. And where community banks are different and where it sets them apart, like Bank Iowa and other community banks in Iowa, when $100 is deposited in, pick a community, West Des Moines, Des Moines, Humboldt, wherever, those dollars are getting deployed in Humboldt and are getting deployed in Des Moines. And that’s good for them, that’s good for their communities, and that’s good for the or- for the c- well, the community overall.

Justin Brady: Yeah, so the idea here is that if you in, if you obviously put a deposit in, in a national bank with a local presence, that obviously goes to employ some local people. Uh, but what you’re saying is, “Mm, yeah, okay, so it does employ the local people. That’s good.” But if you invest it into Bank Iowa, or if you put your, uh, investments, your money into Bank Iowa, a local bank like that, the whole nature of our business is to deploy it locally to businesses, to ag, to people buying homes, so that money is more tightly staying in the community. This is

Jason Herrboldt: That’s the key phrase. Yeah. Tightly staying in that community. And Bank Iowa, its name is Bank Iowa. Its, its communities are all in Iowa. So the deposits that are getting deposited in our community banks in all of our communities are getting deployed in Iowa communities. Yeah.

Justin Brady: So do– Are people, like, do the larger institutions, are they giving you a run for your money at, like, rates then? Like, uh, is that a th- or are you pretty competitive with them?

Jason Herrboldt: We’re very competitive with them. Uh, and yes, they’re giving us a run, not just the national banks. There are fintechs, there are others that

Justin Brady: Yeah, we’ll get into that

Jason Herrboldt: a r- giving us a run for our, you know, from a rate standpoint. Um, but that’s not the only thing that we compete on. Uh, we also compete on trust. We also compete on reliability. Uh, so there, we also compete on expertise Knowing our communities. Uh, there’s value in that, and that’s what we try to compete on in addition to being competitive from a rate standpoint.

Justin Brady: Why would that matter, though, in the case of a community bank? You mentioned local awareness is kind of an advantage that you have. How does that play out in the marketplace?

Jason Herrboldt: Plays out importantly, particularly with businesses. When businesses need to make business decisions, because when they are making decisions for their business, they are absolutely taking into account the economic environment of their communities. And so by having somebody that is deeply– bankers that are deeply connected and also have a stake in the game in that community, they are going to get the kind of advice that they need in order to make good business decisions.

Justin Brady: Sure. So you guys are making loans. You are making those loans fully understanding this will impact where I live. So I’ve gotta make sure to invest in organizations that are gonna provide larger value to the community. If I don’t do that, my community suffers, my job potentially suffers, whereas a larger institution, not gonna downplay it, but they, they don’t really have that local focus to begin with.

Jason Herrboldt: Larger institutions bring a great deal of value to, to society and to our country. There’s no doubt about it. They serve a purpose. Uh, where community banks differ is they, their ships are in the same, you know, are in the same place that their businesses in those communities are. So they’re both looking after their own communities, and that is their priority. That’s how they– When they rank the priorities that they have, they’re thinking about their businesses and their communities. And where community banks come into play, they’re thinking about the same thing in the same community.

Justin Brady: So let’s ta- let’s talk about where the money’s going a little bit, and if it’ll change at all in the future. You’re an ag guy. Like, you’re a farm

Jason Herrboldt: I’m a farm kid.

Justin Brady: and so right now, is most of the Bank Iowa money, is it going into businesses? Is it going into homes? Is it going into ag? What’s the split, and do you see that changing in the next 10, 20 years under your leadership?

Jason Herrboldt: not see it changing under my leadership. Uh, it’s gonna continue to be deposits and investments are gonna continue to go into the communities that we serve in the state of Iowa. That will continue. Uh, our mix, we are, we are a diversified community bank. We, uh, deploy dollars into agriculture a lot. We make loans to businesses so they can make payroll, so they can buy equipment, so they can buy any type of assets that continues to help them grow their business. We make loans to– on real estate in the state of Iowa within the communities we serve. We make home loans. So every dollar that gets deposited in the sta- in any of our banks in the state of Iowa gets deployed into the communities through, whether it’s business or agriculture

Justin Brady: ag side? Very,

Jason Herrboldt: heavy on the ag side. Uh, we are, we are a leader from a percentage of the bank standpoint. We are a leader in ag. A lot of our, uh, of our, uh, of our loans go into ag, go into commercial real estate, and go into commercial and industrial l- industrial lending. C&I is what we call it.

Justin Brady: Yeah. So what’s– Wha- what is the cost of originat- uh, the, the cost of origination versus, like, national? Like, are, are… Do you have an edge there? Are you pretty much tracking with the medium?

Jason Herrboldt: Um, well, from a cost standpoint to, to book a loan with us, I mean, you know, there are economies of scale as you get bigger. You can decrease your cost per loan, of course. But for the benefit of the customer when they’re taking into account, you know, “Who do I wanna do business with? I wanna do business with somebody I trust, and I wanna do some- do business with somebody that is gonna give me an affordable option,” we are absolutely on par with our competitors. We can do it as affordably as any of our competitors can.

Justin Brady: Yeah. So I wanna move into, um, AI and cyber because someone may think a larger institution has more tech. They have more of an IT team to handle the rise in fraud and AI scamming and all this stuff. Uh, what’s the message you have moving into this role in this current state of… Well, I mean, a lot of people are actually scared that AI is going to… It c- it can clone voices now, and so a lot of people are terrified that someone from their bank is gonna call them and ask their, you know, grandparent or their parent for their Social Security number. “This is so and so,” and it sounds like their banker. It’s… What’s being done in that, uh, in that area from a local community bank standpoint to make sure that Iowans’ money is protected and their accounts aren’t, uh, taken over by fraudsters?

Jason Herrboldt: Yeah, that’s a great question. Uh, well, fraud is a never-ending battle. Let’s just, let’s just, let’s just call it what it is. It is, it is only intensifying. It’s only, it’s only increasing, and it’s like, it’s like there’s a whole industry of fraudsters out there trying to figure out ways to take advantage of people. Um, here is, here is why I’m very, very confident that not only Bank Iowa, but banks in the en- throughout the, the banking industry are prepared for this. A couple of things. One, there are technology providers that work with banks that have the scalability to service all community banks, where they then see what’s going on across the entire country.

Justin Brady: Oh,

Jason Herrboldt: Okay? And we benefit from that scalability of the, of them. We benefit from their knowledge. Not to mention, we have our own expertise on staff that are committed. Their full day is monitoring tools that provide AR ca- provide AI capabilities to monitor fraud across our customer base. So we’re constantly watching it internally, and we have partners on our technology stack that also help us. Then there’s something else. Banks are a heavy regulated industry. It is one of the most regulated industries in, uh, in the country, in the world. And regulators evaluate, they scrutinize the technology capabilities and the management, um, of the technology capabilities of a bank. They scrutinize it, and they judge you on it. So not only are you held accountable to your customers, not only are you held accountable to your shareholders, you’re held accountable to regulators that also have a purview across the country on what good looks like, what great looks like in terms of fraud prevention and tech- technological capability.

Justin Brady: I don’t even know how to say this, but like, um, cybersecurity being isolated in some entities. Right. They see their own stuff. They see their own patterns. You mentioned, yeah, I mean, a lot of the providers we use, however, actually work with a lot of community banks.

Jason Herrboldt: Sometimes thousands

Justin Brady: yeah, so they see national patterns developing. Even though we at our bank haven’t seen that, our providers have seen that. Right.

Jason Herrboldt: That’s right.

Justin Brady: What are the, some of those patterns that you and your team are starting to witness now? Um, because I guarantee you’re seeing the patterns, and maybe some of your customers probably haven’t experienced those yet. Hopefully, they never do. But what are some of those cybersecurity and those hacking patterns that you’re seeing right now that you guys are getting ahead of that maybe your clientele probably aren’t aware of?

Jason Herrboldt: Yeah. Um, well, let’s just start on the business side, uh, which has been a more emerging… It kind of started with, uh, you know, if you think back to when I was… I was a teller once, uh, when I first went into banking, and really the only fraud was, like, kiting. Uh, sometimes people would get ahold of people’s checkbook and would forge signatures. Uh, that was the kind of fraud that- Kiting. Yeah, kiting, where it’s…

Justin Brady: I’ve

Jason Herrboldt: yeah. Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s a different kind of fraud. It’s basically you’re frauding the bank in terms of you’re, like, kind of moving money from one bank to the next, and you’re kind of floating between the banks. So that was something that existed many years ago. It’s a little harder to pull off now. But, um, one of the, one of the things that we’re starting to see a lot of is businesses, business owners or t- team members within a business, their emails are getting com- can get compromised if they themselves don’t have a good, you know, fraud management mechanism within their organization. And so they’ll get… So fraudsters will get access to their emails, and they’ll reach out to the banks through The email that they compromised and try to get money moved, wired or ACH’d, you know, to a, an account that they have set up at another financial institution, and then, you know, within an hour of the money moving, it’s gone. So the steps that business owners and banks can take is to come up with, uh, ways to prevent it. So, um, multi-factor authentication is, is an, is a way that you can do it. Another thing is dual control. So making sure that the bank that you’re working with is, is, uh, saying, “All right, before we wire money out, not only can you approve it, business owner, but we also wanna make sure that somebody else on your team can sign off on it also.” That way you can sorta double-check. You know, um, there’s also, you know, people are continuing to, to impersonate.

Justin Brady: Mm-hmm.

Jason Herrboldt: know, like

Justin Brady: Uh- Spoofing or whatever,

Jason Herrboldt: But people will impersonate, could impersonate somebody, reach out to their grandmother or their grandfather or their parent and pretend as though there’s a crisis, and they will demand, you know, that, that they wire or send X number of dollars. So bottom line that I think people need to be constantly aware of is pause. Just pause and ask yourself, “Is this possibly a real scenario?” And in a case like I just exam- an example I just gave you is, you know, before you send that money, maybe hang up and call that person back, or call your c- your, your grandson back or your

Justin Brady: yeah. Mm-hmm. And- It’s good advice, yeah.

Jason Herrboldt: So pausing before you make decisions. If something seems too good to be true, it likely is. Uh, something else that you see is, uh, is, is people, you know, people will say, “All right, um, I have this crypto, you know, fund that I wanna get set up.” And they’ll draw people in. People will sen- they call it pig butchering, I believe, right Josh? They call it pig butchering, and basically they’ll draw people in. They’ll get people to trust them, and then, uh, over time, uh, as they get them convinced that, “You know, why don’t you send me some money and I’m gonna put it into this crypto fund,” and then it’s gone. Uh, so just, people just need to pause. Be careful on who you trust. Don’t trust people too easily, especially if it seems too good to be true.

Justin Brady: Yeah, and for those that don’t know, Josh Fleming, one of the market– the, the head marketing dude is off in the corner here enjoying one of our little lounge chairs. So that’s, that’s that’s who Jason’s referring to. Um, a lot of our guests bring in people to watch and have fun and, um, you know, do whatever.

Jason Herrboldt: And this is day five for me.

Justin Brady: he’s just over there chilling with the thumbs up. Um, no, I’m, I’m glad you brought up some of the what I would call non-banking competition or some of the non-traditional stuff. Crypto, we’re gonna get into that. But I wanna put a kind of a, a overview of what you just said. You mentioned, this is key, I think. You mentioned that, uh, the fraudsters used to just target the banks, and now the banks at this point, I mean, we don’t wanna jinx it, right? I’m, I’m sure fraudsters can do a number on the banks. That’s gonna happen. It, it happens. But they’ve kinda moved on to easier targets, which is we’ve kinda given up on the banks themselves because as you, as you, as you have mentioned, the tools you have now are quite vast.

Jason Herrboldt: good.

Justin Brady: And so now they’re trying to come after individuals themselves. Like the one you mentioned, especially with AI spoofing now, I believe one AI tool, you can talk into this tool for two minutes, and it can completely replicate your voice perfectly. For someone like me, there are thousands of hours of my voice online. AI would have absolutely no problem nailing my voice, and then what they do is they call someone, uh, s- number spoofing, so it’ll come across your phone as that person. Like they’re– it’s almost im- And they are trying to take advantage of the vulnerabilities from your customers. Yeah. And so is this like a newslet- Like how do you stay ahead of that? Is it just a newsletter? Do you text people? Do you just, uh, throw seminars for people letting them know the latest tre- What do you do to like help members and businesses stay ahead of this

Jason Herrboldt: me- Mm-hmm. Well, one thing I’ve been very impr- keep in mind, this is day five for me at Bank Iowa. Uh- Excuse me. Yeah. And, uh, but one thing I, one thing I’ve been very, very impressed with, um, and actually when I was, uh, when I was considering this opportunity, going back, I did a lot of homework on Bank Iowa, and I was very impressed with their proactive approach to educating their community members and their customers on what to look out for. They can’t… Bank Iowa and any other bank cannot guarantee with a 100% certainty that a, that somebody isn’t gonna try to f- defraud somebody. They can’t guarantee it. But what they can do is give them the tools, both through the bank and through education, so people are more aware of the risks that are out there. I’ve been very, very impressed with the proactive approach that the team at Bank Iowa has taken.

Justin Brady: You mentioned, um, like, uh, uh, when it comes to businesses having two parties sign off on certain things. What other things are you seeing that, uh, for businesses that you’re like, “Guys,” you know, “owners, founders, uh, CFOs, you really need to be more careful on X, Y, and Z”? What are some of those other things that, that, uh, Iowa businesses are a little vulnerable at?

Jason Herrboldt: Well, pay attention to what, what’s going through your account. Um, so there are tools that you can, that you can ask for with your bank that allows you to monitor what’s going through your account every single day, and you can do so very effectively and, and, and very efficiently before the funds actually go out of the bank. So that’s one thing. And, and, you know, it’s called positive pl- pay in some places. Um, it… So those are… There’s some tools there. But, um, I would absolutely just… I wanna stress, and this is m- it’s more often than not, businesses don’t do it, but the dual control piece is critical. It’s critical to making sure that there are more than one person looking at items going out of the bank electronically through the digital channels. It’s just very, very important, um, because it’s just a matter of time until somebody gets ahold of somebody’s email. The other thing I would do is make sure that you sort of audit your team members, educate your team members not to open links that they don’t recognize. Um, or if something looks suspicious, um, that’s coming through on their email, like maybe their CEO is sending an email saying, “Hey, I need some money sent, uh, sent my way. Click this link.” Just ask, pause, and make sure. So don’t open anything, don’t click on anything, otherwise the fraudster is now into your system. So audit against it and make sure your team members are following through with the guidance that you’re giving them when it comes to paying attention to what they’re opening and what they’re clicking

Justin Brady: I’m glad you brought that up because a large organization, client of mine, um, w- on my actual business here, this is my fun thing, as people know, um, this happened to them. They… I don’t, I don’t remember the whole nuance of the details. It’s not important to get into, but somehow a fraudster externally was able to spoof their CFO’s email address. The CFO

Jason Herrboldt: Yeah.

Justin Brady: one of his underlings to send money somewhere, and this underling, ’cause the CFO, it’s the boss, just, like, didn’t question it and did it. And then in passing that day, he’s like, “Hey, I got that thing taken care of.” And he’s like, “What are you talking about?” And he’s like, “Well, the… I, I wired that money,” or, “I sent that.” And he’s like- No, no, no. I- it wasn’t me. Are you kidding me? Wait, w- and they had been had.

Jason Herrboldt: No,

Justin Brady: Now, I don’t know if they had external marked emails. I don’t know the nuance of it, but I think a lot of people will think, a lot of business owners are like, “I’m not worried about grandma,” you know? Like, you know, I, I, I’ve got my personal stuff figured out. We’re a business. We have a more official things. This isn’t gonna happen to us. And what you’re saying is they’re

Jason Herrboldt: It will. They’re

Justin Brady: gonna do the same thing. You may have all these layers, but they’re gonna spoof the CFO, and they’re gonna email an underling, and they’re gonna get you. And what’s interesting about that is these fraudsters, one of the things they’re very good at is timing. They somehow, they study people’s social media feeds. They know when you’re in moments of panic, when it’s the end of your fiscal year, when you’re filing. They know when you’re in moments of panic, and that is, uh… And I don’t wanna s- make a statement, but is that generally when they like to strike, when they know that internal departments are kinda running heavy?

Jason Herrboldt: Yes. Yeah. Um, when somebody compromises somebody else’s email or their account or their activity that they, that they’re doing on their system, they’re monitoring that for a while.

Justin Brady: And they’re-

Jason Herrboldt: their own digital tools to monitor patterns and build out what patterns look like, and they know that for every 100 attempts, there’s maybe one that will get through. It’s, it’s a math game.

Justin Brady: Hmm.

Jason Herrboldt: Mm-hmm. So, so know this: if somebody has got into your system, they’re watching you. Yeah. They’re paying attention to you. They’re looking to the patterns that you just, that you just spoke about, and they’re gonna find a way to expose where you’re weak or where you’re not paying attention.

Justin Brady: Yeah, absolutely. You brought up crypto earlier, um, and I’ll, I’ll be really honest with you, Jason. Um, I still don’t, at the risk of everybody thinking I sound like an idiot, I still don’t really understand the long-term value of crypto. I see it being useful in very niche online situations, almost like an online currency of sorts. Uh, I see blockchain being extremely valuable from a security standpoint. I don’t see, and maybe I’ll regret saying this in 5 to 10 years, I don’t see crypto replacing the monetary system. I don’t see that happening. I could be wrong. Do banking CEOs like yourself, do you see, like, crypto, stable coins, gold stable coins? You mentioned fintechs earlier. Is this a disruptor, or are these things just ancillary, and maybe you’ll work nice with them, uh, from a banking standpoint? What do, what do you think?

Jason Herrboldt: question anybody that proclaims that they know for certain what would happen or what will happen with cryptocurrency. To your point, I absolutely see the value in blockchain, and blockchain was the rail that crypto was put on. So I see the value of blockchain. There’s a lot of use cases for blockchain. Um, but to your point, to replace the monetary system, can you imagine… Right now, the US dollar is the, is the, is the currency of the world. Right.

Justin Brady: Yeah

Jason Herrboldt: If crypto, whatever type of cryptocurrency you’re referring to, ends up becoming the primary source in which we exchange value, what does that do to the US monetary

Justin Brady: I would imagine it

Jason Herrboldt: It crushes it, right? So that’s why. That and for y- other reasons, I’m skeptical that cryptocurrency is gonna all of a sudden replace the US dollar as the form of exchange. I just do. Um, but when– But I’m not one to proclaim with any kind of 100% certainty that I’m right. So I think it’s very, very important that, that bank leaders, government officials, and people learn and pay attention and are prepared, um, for any potential scenario that could play out. Um, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to understand what we’re dealing with. We’re gonna try to be prepared for whatever scenario plays out. But do I lose sleep that all of a sudden next week, um, the US dollar is, is not the form– w- the way we buy gasoline and packages of gum? Um, I am not worried

Justin Brady: can buy a Bitcoin burger at Steak ‘ n

Jason Herrboldt: You can buy it. I haven’t done it yet. I don’t have

Justin Brady: any Bitcoin, so I know… This is one of those areas that I’m like, man, I’m usually pretty good at calling some trends. You, you know, that’s like a skill I have, I think. But this is just those one, one area where I’m like, man, I’m either completely blind or just stupid in this stuff. And sometimes I feel dumb saying out loud, “I just don’t see the mass application of crypto.” I feel like an idiot saying that. But, um, will people be able to, like, manage their crypto accounts or deposit, like, Bitcoin at Bank Iowa either now or in the future? Is this something we’re gonna, like, “Hey, we’ll manage it. We’ll help you with that.” Are we gonna go all in on it and bet the farm? No. But we’ll certainly help you manage. Like, where, where, where does Bank Iowa stand? Where do you think other community banks are gonna fall? Mm-hmm.

Jason Herrboldt: We are in the same spot as commu- at Bank Iowa, any community bank, as even the large national banks are. We are trying to figure it out. It would be totally premature for whether it’s me or Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan to, to proclaim that they’re gonna start managing Bitcoin, um, at the, at the teller line. Um,

Justin Brady: So to be determined. Right now, I cannot deposit or withdraw Bitcoin at Bank

Jason Herrboldt: You cannot, no. Okay. And you won’t tomorrow either. And you won’t or the

Justin Brady: or the next day, but maybe in the future. For right now, everybody, go to Steak ‘n Shake. That’s where you can buy stuff with your Bitcoin. Um, you’re a South Dakota guy, and can… I guess last question for you is, is there anything… Like, what excites you most about this gig, being in Iowa? Uh, I think that most people, like we talked about earlier, you’re, you’re an ag guy, so you’re, you have that ag community mindset. You’re a farm kid. Is there anything interesting about Iowa so far that surprised you? Or is there anything that gets you excited about this, uh, this role here and becoming part of the Iowa community?

Jason Herrboldt: Um- I am. Last- Mm-hmm. So you’re- Yeah. Perform. You don’t have enough time, uh, for me to, for me to probably comment on all the reasons I’m excited, but here, I’m gonna probably strike at a few things, uh, for you. Uh, first and foremost, I, I grew up in southeastern South Dakota on a farm. I was 30 minutes from the Nebraska border, and I was about 30 minutes from the Iowa border, and I remember we, uh, as kids, we would always camp at Lewis & Clark Lake, um, at the very, very southeast corner of South Dakota, and there were more Iowa license plates at that campground than at the, than there were South Dakota

Justin Brady: funny. Yeah,

Jason Herrboldt: And my dad used to always grumble about that. Yeah. He’s like, “My goodness, this is in South Dakota, and there’s more, uh, there’s more folks from Iowa here than, than South Dakota.” Uh, so, so South Dakota and Iowa are neighboring states. Um, I grew up near Iowa. When my, my w- my home in South Dakota, I’m in the process of moving, is 10 minutes from the Iowa border. So I… Yes, 10 minutes from the Iowa border. So I have been around Iowa my entire life, um, and, uh, have driven through Iowa many, many, many, many times. It’s like home. It is like home. What gets me excited about Bank Iowa, it’s, uh, it’s the team, it’s their values, and it’s their commitment to communities. One thing that w- I and they and Iowans have in common is they value their communities. Communities are important. They value why we are who we are and what has brought us to where we are, and that is driven through agriculture. You know? I mean, we are, we are an agricultural state in South Dakota and in Iowa. Yes. We are agricultural states, and we are only one or two generations, all of us, removed from a farm.

Justin Brady: Yeah, it’s true.

Jason Herrboldt: Right? And so valuing where we came from and valuing that heritage and valuing the communities and valuing the team members, valuing the business owners, that is part of the DNA of Bank Iowa and is frankly how I think about things. And knowing that there are organizations out there that have those same values, it’s really easy for me to get excited and to put my shoulder behind something that has that kind of a commitment.

Justin Brady: Jason Herrboldt, the brand new CEO of Bank Iowa, congratulations. And of course, thanks for coming on the Iowa Business Podcast.

Jason Herrboldt: you, Justin