Susan Tucker, a Vice President and Commercial Loan Officer with Omni Bank, has been a member of our CREW New Orleans Chapter for just a little more than a year and is anxious to get more involved. As a proud mom of two children, and a recent first-time grandmother, she has spent much of her career busy with family, but is now finding herself with more time to grow her network.
Sue is the first one to tell you how relationships are her business. As a longtime member of the New Orleans regional banking community, she says there is not a single customer of hers that has come through cold calls or paid advertising. Each customer, for both commercial and personal loans, has come her way through the power of referrals. And for her, she recognizes that “referrals can come from anywhere.” In her position, a small business loan customer can also become a mortgage loan customer or a real estate loan customer overnight.
Her specialty, though, is in the small business loan sector. Loan officers from across the Omni Bank family reference her accumulated expertise in order to help our City’s small businesses get access to funding.
Sue proved her commitment to small business during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As a member of a community bank, she quickly recognized the importance of having personal knowledge of each of her customers’ on-site circumstances. So with boots on, she helped her them estimate the value of the damage to their facilities and operational equipment. After learning the power of locally-based decision making by working with Omni, she was able to help quantify their loan needs to carry them out of the storm and get access to funds while still negotiating with insurance providers. It is people like Sue that helped keep companies like ours afloat during those hard times.
Sue is a deeply rooted member of our community. She spends the holidays here in the city with more than 30 members of her family, Mardi Gras with her pharmacist husband during his Endymion Krewe duties, and football season at a long-established tailgate outside of Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. A true local’s local, Sue represents much of what our community’s business network is based on. She will hopefully be a long-standing member of our Chapter and is sure to help many of our businesses and clients in a number of financial ways for many years to come.