I am especially pleased to be able to address each Second National Bank employee through this newsletter. It gives me an opportunity to reinforce what I have said to each of you at the banking center and department meetings held over the past few months. To be successful in this marketplace, all 500 of us must be on the same page. Your understanding of my philosophy of banking and the direction we're headed is critical to our success.

Ultimately, we are a retail service business. And today's customers can go anywhere to get that service. As a regional community bank, I believe we have an edge on national and regional banks because size costs customer service and shareholder return. A place like Second National is by nature more focused and service-oriented--it's much easier to get 500 people behaving in the same fashion and understanding goals than it is to get 4,500 doing the same.

But to be many customers' bank of choice, we need to be very good at banking--on a consistent basis. My long-term goal for Second National is to develop such strong, long-term relationships with our customers that they won't even listen to the competition . . . customers so happy that it's impossible to pry them away from us.

Second National Bank has developed an excellent delivery system; our task now is capitalize on our banking centers by increasing business in each of our markets. And we must change our traditional definition of customer service. In addition to making our response times to customer requests faster than ever, we have to more fully concentrate on relationship building. With an increased understanding of customer, household, and product profitability, we will be able to do a better job of matching customer needs to our products and services--and push our average customer-to-product ratio closer to 4.

You can count on operational enhancements to support all of your sales and service efforts. The new loan document preparation system in the banking centers is just one example of the system improvements to come. On the drawing board are new pricing structures to help incent customers to do more business with Second National and top-notch training for all employees. You will read more about these programs in future issues of Second Thoughts.

We have instituted a fair amount of change at the Bank--and we all know that change can be difficult. But let me assure you there is a purpose. Our goal is to take Second National Bank to another level--to increase our efficiency, boost earnings, and ultimately, the value of Second Bancorp, Inc. stock. With improved numbers, Second National Bank will be a better operation, and I assure you our success will positively affect everyone--employees, customers, and shareholders.

As we continue to streamline our organization, it is important that each of you feel very much a part of the re-engineering. You have probably already observed that my communication style is open and direct; I will do everything in my power to ward off the barriers to communication that permeate any organization of our size. I want your ideas. I want you to question the process. We cannot be afraid to do things differently. The minute I hear "because we've always done it that way," I know there's a change begging to be made.

As I look around Second National Bank, I see talented, high-quality employees who truly want to be a part of something positive. I see individuals who very much want Second National to be a successful organization. Together, I know we can be that.