Deerwood Bank opens branch office in Red Lake

By Michael Barrett

Freelance Writer

       Deerwood Bank of Deerwood, Minnesota, who has branch offices in Bemidji, Brainard, Cross Lake, and Garrison, now has another branch in Red Lake.

       Although they were initially planned to be open for business in August 2003, they officially opened their doors on September 15, 2003.

       The Red Lake Reservation, which has been without a bank since the Plummer Bank branch in Red Lake closed, has been without immediate banking services for over a year. People had to travel at least 30 miles one way to do their banking, in such places as Bemidji, Gonvick, Blackduck, Kelliher, Bagley and Thief River Falls.

       Although the construction and remodeling of the bank was not fully completed, Branch Manager Derek Head said all the construction would be complete in another day or so. There were just some doors and frames that needed to be put in and some other finishing touches. Red Lake Builders was doing the remodeling project and he was pleased with their work.

       “We’re going to be doing an Open House on the 9^th of October,” Head said. “And we’re going to have more to come with things planned, a week long of festivities, some giveaways, and follow it up on the Thursday with kind of a cookout and more.”

       He said they were trying to do a lot of community involvement type of activities and they were excited about their presence in Red Lake.

       They will have three full time employees and were looking at increasing the staff with a couple part time employees.

       “We’re also looking within Red Lake to hire,” Head added.

       He said the Red Lake Branch was the sixth branch office of Deerwood Bank. They had their main bank located in Deerwood, with branches in Brainerd, Garrison, Bemidji, a loan office in Cross Lake, and now the Red Lake Branch.

       Right across from the Mall in Bemidji a new building was going up which would be the new location of their Bemidji Branch office.

       As far as check cashing went, they would be also looking at a check cashing fee to a non-Deerwood Bank check.

       Of course there were ways around that, Head said, one of which was having an account with the bank. Those holding accounts like a checking or savings account would be rewarded with no fees for that service.

       A non-customer fee on cashing a non-Deerwood check would be charged $3.00 per $100.00, but would max it up to $15.00 where it was capped.

       “We’re also doing some negotiations to where a lot of the paychecks that come through from the various industries, agencies, government and through the tribe, if they’re all drawn off a Deerwood Bank account–payroll checks–then we won’t charge anything on it.”

       The Red Lake Tribe was in the process right now of conducting some business with the bank and moving some of their accounts through Deerwood.

       Of course Head said the bank does encourage people setting up their own accounts, of which they will also be implementing direct deposit and other services.

       “It’s a real positive as a convenience to the people here and everything, and we’re really excited,” he stated. “We’ve really built our reputation as a bank on involving the community and not just calling them customers, but involving them in everything–so they’re not just a customer.”

       The main Deerwood Bank first opened its doors in 1910, and they state on their Website, “Our ability to provide individualized service is exceeded only by our commitment to providing you with progressive, twenty-first century banking technology. One of their services is on-line banking where you can log on at deerwoodbank.com.

       “We’re a full service bank so we’ll set up accounts, whether they’re checking or savings, business accounts, sole proprietorships and so forth,” Head said. “We’re definitely encouraging the entrepreneur to come out and things that we do for that are loans–consumer loans–and just about everything. And we offer on-line banking to check cards.”

       He said they provided the same services that a larger bank like Wells-Fargo, U.S. Bank or any of those larger banks provided, just in a smaller setting.

       Head has been with Deerwood Bank since June of this year, having been hired on to run the Red Lake Branch Office. He is a member of the Red Lake Band, having grew up in the Bemidji area.

       Luck and chance was how he said he got into the banking business, and in the few months that he’s been in it so far, he was really excited about it–as well as felt good about being in Red Lake.

       His background mainly was aviation, construction and some marketing, which led him to the people that owned Deerwood Bank. The bank owns a construction company out of Deerwood where he had been working with them for the last couple years.

       “In the middle of that we were trying to work on getting a bank up here up and running again,” he said. “I really didn’t have a lot of banking, it just happened where I could introduce a few people, and the talks got serious. The next thing you know, the contracts came into place where they said, “Let’s do it.” I was still in construction and they provided me the opportunity.”

       Owners of the bank asked him if he wanted to learn about banking and move back home, where they said they would give him that opportunity if h wanted it.

       The hours of operation at the Red Lake Branch office were 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays, and they would be looking at adding Saturdays if the need grew to expanding their services. Their telephone number is 679-3700. An open house is planned during the week of October 9, 2003.