Wayne Savings Cuts Ribbon at New Office in Canfield

CANFIELD, Ohio — Wayne Savings Community Bank’s expansion into Canfield puts it on a path to becoming a lending hub for the flourishing business community of the Mahoning Valley.

The office at 3770 Starrs Centre Drive iopened the first week of October and held its ribbon cutting ceremony Friday afternoon.

The market in the Mahoning Valley is what brought the loan production office to the area, says Executive Chairman Mark Witmer.

“Mahoning County is an outstanding market — a very diverse market,” Witmer says. “You go from southern Mahoning County having an agricultural base and a rural base, and then as you move north you have more manufacturing and commercial real estate and a lot more of the business type lending.”

Wayne Savings opened its first office in the Mahoning Valley two years ago in Washingtonville. The response in Columbiana County was outstanding, Witmer says, and the office often served customers from Mahoning County, making the expansion an easy decision.

“It’s really because we’ve been so successful in our expansion into Columbiana County. Our full-service office has been very successful, and we have just a lot of businesses in the area,” Witmer says. “We do a lot of small business lending and a lot of agricultural lending.”

As a loan production office, Wayne Savings offers all types of loans including mortgage, home equity lines of credit, agricultural, and commercial loan solutions, as well as online and digital banking solutions.

The office offers specialized financing programs for agriculture companies such as Farm Service Agency farm loans, U.S. Department of Agriculture loans and Farmer Mac loans. Farmer Mac is an agricultural credit market and was created to increase access to and reduce the cost of capital for the benefit of American agriculture and rural communities.

The office focuses on small to mid-sized businesses, Vice President of Commercial Banking John Kline says. The modest size of the office gives its clients a more personal experience.

“The size of the office allows us to have most of the services that big banks have but delivered as a personal service because the decision makers are right here,” he says.

Kline says there is a great amount of business activity in the tri-county area — Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana. The office hopes to sustain that activity through its services, and aid in the growth of the Mahoning Valley business community, he says.

“We’re expanding in this area and we’re making a statement by making this office a commercial lending hub,” Kline says.

Wayne Savings Community Bank, established in 1899, operates 12 full-service banking locations in the communities of Wooster, Ashland, Millersburg, Rittman, Lodi, North Canton, Creston, Fredericksburg and Washingtonville, Ohio.

The company plans to open its 13th branch by year-end in Dalton, Ohio.

Pictured at top: Alec Economous, commercial loan underwriter; Sherri Hull, commercial loan closing and documentation manager; John D. Kline, vice president of commercial banking; Brandon Pluchinsky, commercial and mortgage lender; Mark Witmer, executive chairman.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.