Northwestern Financial Review: For the love of COMMUNITY

Former Kansas legislator leading banker association to renewed growth

Shari Weber, the executive director of the Community Bankers Association of Kansas, converted a low point in her life into a turning point. It was the end of 2002 and the former majority leader of the Kansas House of Representatives had just lost an election. It was a contentious election, rumors were circulating, loyalties were betrayed, and Weber - a lifelong advocate for small towns - began to feel as if she had lost her sense of community. She didn't know it at the time, but the Community Bankers Association of Kansas would help her regain that sense.

Weber, who grew up in small towns like Fergus Falls and Owatonna, Minn., and went to college in Moorhead, Minn., settled in Herington, Kan., in 1985 where she served as the director of the town's Main Street program. The federally funded effort was meant to revitalize small towns across the country, including Herington, a town of 2,700 people in the east-central part of the state. In the early 1990s, with the last of her three children preparing to leave the nest, she decided to run for the state legislature. Weber's father, Al Hanson, had run for office several times so she knew what a campaign was all about. Her husband, Marvin, had built visibility for the Weber name with the family business, Weber Tire, which he started in Minnesota years earlier with Shari's father, a veteran of Uniroyal.

Running as a conservative Republican, she won a seat in the legislature in 1994 representing House District 68, an area made up of Dickinson, Morris and Lyon counties. She gained political notoriety working on issues related to children and economic development, and voters re-elected her in 1996, 1998 and 2000. She served on committees for Business, Commerce and Labor; Education; and Local Government. She also worked on issues related to gambling, juvenile justice, higher education and public safety.

"She relates very well with people," observed Stew Etherington, president of the Eisenhower Foundation, which runs the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kan. "She is down to earth. She educates herself on the issues. When she tells you she is interested in your issue, she stays with it. She doesn't just forget about it after the vote."

Etherington should know. He worked with Weber to garner $1 million in state funds for a major renovation of the Eisenhower Center, which includes the library, the former president's boyhood home, and his burial spot. It was a perfect project for Weber, who loved the idea of a major attraction bringing attention and economic stimulus to a small community.

Weber built a political platform on her interest in downsizing government, and building efficiencies into state systems. She strongly opposed increases in taxes. During her first legislative session, she was involved in successful efforts setting in motion several tax relief laws, including a five-year phase-in of a 50 percent reduction in the personal property tax on automobiles. Republicans, the overwhelming majority party in Kansas, liked Weber's style; leadership rewarded her with a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee in 1998. Two years later, she became the first female Republican to be named Majority Leader, the No. 2 position in the House behind the Speaker.

Weber's increased responsibility came just as the state was wrestling with budget problems. The state budget was out of balance by nearly a half a billion dollars and talks were going nowhere in the spring of 2001. Weber tried to use her position to force some decisions. In the last days of the session, she sent home about 120 secretaries, a move that saved taxpayers $11,000 a day and forced lawmakers to answer their own telephones and mail. She also cut off the supply of donuts to the morning caucus meetings. The symbolic moves irritated many Democrats, who began forwarding their phone calls to Weber's office. The 2001 session ended with little resolved and things only got worse as the legislature met in 2002. Kansas' top industry - agriculture - was suffering from a severe drought, and aviation - the state's No. 2 industry - was decimated following the attacks of 9-11.

Weber, who had spent a lot of time as Majority Leader helping fellow Republicans win elections, found herself in a difficult election in 2002. Even with her high-profile position, a challenger emerged in her own party. Bill Kassebaum, the son of a former U.S. senator and grandson of a former Kansas governor, challenged Weber. As a moderate Republican, he represented an alternative to Weber's conservative approach to politics. In the August 6 primary, Kassebaum beat Weber by 145 votes out of 3,851 votes cast. Weber said the low turnout hurt, and others observed that crossover voting by Democrats in the primary may have skewed the results.

Weber said at that point she thought her political run was over, but Weber loyalists launched a write-in campaign in response. Even without the official support of the party, signs went up and flyers were distributed.

"The people who get to know her end up supporting her," Etherington commented. "These are the people who launched the write-in campaign."

"A lot of people in my District felt duped and they put words into action," Weber said. "The people who supported me in the primary were the ones who just got angrier and angrier. They told more people about it, including people who hadn't bothered to vote in the primary."

By Election Day, Nov. 5, the race was too close to call. In the end, Kassebaum won with 53 percent of the vote to Weber's 31 percent and 21 percent for the Democrat candidate.

"My loss of a sense of community came from trying to understand why these people who had supported me for four, six, eight years, were all of a sudden not putting signs in their yard," Weber reflected. "The other hard part of it was the other side was telling half-truths, and the rest of these people who were supporting me didn't stop that by telling the rest of the story."

Ironically, the elections that brought disappointment to Weber, brought first-time victory to her father who was running for state auditor in Missouri. This is the same Al Hanson who won national attention in 1996 by running against his wife for a seat in the Missouri legislature. (He was a Democrat at the time, she a Republican, but they both lost in primaries.) In 2002, at age 72, Hanson beat St. Louis attorney Jay Kanzler in the Republican primary for the statewide position by a 2-to-1 ratio. Kanzler had $115,000 to spend on the campaign; Hanson had less than $1,000.

"The year he won that primary, it should have been a sweet moment for him," commented Weber, "but he was just devastated because I lost."

Weber set out in a new direction after the election. She was determined to find something in Herington, where she could be close to her husband, Marvin, and perhaps get back involved with the family business. But nothing turned up. Weber said she had a hard time getting people to take her seriously. "They all said I should be a lobbyist," she recalled. "But I've never seen myself in that role. I just wanted to do something in my District."

She applied for a number of jobs, including director of a soybean association, a chamber of commerce executive's position, and a hospital administration post. But it was a friend who steered her in the direction of community banking. Janet Lewis had been a friend since they shared a room at boarding school as teenagers. Lewis' husband Gregg Lewis is chairman of the First Option Bank in Osawatomie, Kan, and was vice president with the Community Bankers Association of Kansas. Gregg Lewis had supported Weber while she was in the legislature and he encouraged her to apply for an opening at the association created by the departure of former executive director Robert Kennedy.

Kennedy had been the 26-year-old association's third full-time executive. (Sue Anderson held the job for 20 years before Kennedy. The group's first executive was Conant Wait). Lewis noted that when Kennedy was hired in 2000, the association received only nine applications for the job. In 2003, the association received 39 applications. Lewis said Weber easily made the cut to the four finalists.

"During that final interview, Shari told us we bankers have a special purpose. She told us that we have a passion for our communities, and I thought, 'you know, she's so right.'" Lewis commented.

"She has an incredible passion for small towns. She articulates that passion very well," commented Steve Handke, president of The Union State Bank in Everest, Kan. Handke will become chairman of the Community Bankers Association of Kansas next week when the association hosts its annual convention in Wichita. At the meeting, the title of president is being changed to chairman, while the executive director's title will be changed to president.

"There was a fire in Shari. We were looking for someone who could put a face on community banking, and that's Shari. She's a proven leader. She's well thought of and she knows the inside of the system. She's very professional in addition to being a warm and likable person," Handke said.

She was hired in May 2003, and Lewis said the board just completed a very positive annual evaluation of her. The board particularly liked her effort to visit every bank in the state, a monumental task given the state's 362 banks with 1,000-plus offices. About one-third of the state's banks are members of CBA Kansas, and Weber got to about half of those during her first 12 months on the job.

"We're building relationships," Weber said of the visits, which include non-member banks as well. "The bankers quiz me a lot at those meetings. They want to know about government, and they ask me about CBA. They also want to know about our relationship with the Kansas Bankers Association." Weber describes that relationship by calling CBA and KBA "sister organizations." While serving in the legislature, Weber said KBA lobbyist Chuck Stones was a trusted ally.

The legislative session came and went with much less stress for Weber than those of her legislative days. In 2004, she testified on one issue she knows inside and out - placement of public funds. Periodically over the last several years, municipal treasurers would seek the ability to place public money in financial institutions outside the state. Weber fought against the idea as a legislator and, this spring, as "the face of community banking" at a hearing on the topic.

"It was the No. 1 issue for the League of Municipalities," Weber said. "They wanted to get rid of the law. What they don't realize is that the trade-off for that is their town is dead."

Because she knows first-hand of the importance of political involvement, Weber is constantly encouraging her members to participate in the political process. Raising money for the association's political action committee is important, she said, as is regular contact with lawmakers. She even offered to help one banker run for the legislature after he approached her about the possibility of running.

There have been other important initiatives in the last year, such as a logo redesign and the launch of bank robbery reduction program. Weber, who is out of the office much of the time, credits her four-person staff for many of the association's successes. In the final analysis, she said she finds the association to be a good fit for her because of the nature of community bankers.

"In order to be a community banker, you have to have certain attributes," she said. "Character and integrity have to permeate what you do. You have to care a lot about your community. You have to be focused on local money for local development. It's this philosophy that cements people into the CBA."