Rain showers this morning with overcast skies during the afternoon hours. High around 45F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Higher wind gusts possible..
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Cloudy and windy this evening, becoming partly cloudy after midnight. Low 27F. Winds WNW at 20 to 30 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
SCOTIA — Despite his family’s generational ties to 1st National Bank of Scotia, John Buhrmaster never thought he’d spend his career in banking.
He instead planned to enter the computer programming field after graduating Syracuse University in 1986, and even had a job lined up for the fall of that year. But while he waited to start his career, Buhrmaster took a part-time job as a teller at 1st National to tide him over.
He never left.
“It wasn’t what I expected,” Buhrmaster said. “In college you learn about banking from the macroeconomic perspective. ... But community banking is about relationships. It's about helping people at the best times of their life and the worst times of their life, or just a regular day. And it's about making people's lives better. I found that attractive.”
Today, Buhrmaster, 59, is president and CEO of 1st National Bank of Scotia, a position previously held by his father Louis, grandfather Kenneth and great-grandfather John, whom he’s named after.
It’s a family legacy that can be traced to the 1930s — the worst period of economic hardship in the country’s history — and extends through an untold number of economic ups and downs in the nearly 10 decades since.
The bank was founded in 1923 and celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. The Buhrmaster family remains majority owner of the bank, but answers to more than 300 shareholders who own a stake of the business.
"The community has given our family everything we have in being able to raise our children in a wonderful place," Buhrmaster said.
But there was a period when Buhrmaster didn’t believe the bank would survive, let alone grow to the more than 35,000 customers across the country and roughly $660 million in total assets it has today.
General Electric had begun pulling out of Schenectady in the 1970s, which “brought tremendous losses” for 1st National by the early 1980s, recalled Buhrmaster, who was a high school student at the time.
His father worked to right the ship through a storm that included more than 1,900 cease-and-desist orders, a seemingly insurmountable challenge to most. At one point, 1st National was labeled a bank most likely to fail by some local media outlets.
“We are the only bank to make it through that,” Buhrmaster said. “My dad was going through that at the time I was in high school and college. He naturally was not encouraging me to come into the business.”
But while talking recently in his office atop the bank’s headquarters along Mohawk Avenue, Buhrmaster fondly recalled his nearly 40 years at the bank, a period that has seen him serve in every position from branch manager to the head of the bank’s credit, loan and collections departments.
He’s done everything from helping to construct the bank’s former Albany Street branch in Schenectady in the 1990s, to helping digitize bank records, to implementing 1st National’s online banking program in the 2000s.
By his mid-30s Buhrmaster was tapped to be the bank’s vice president, a role that gave him a greater share of responsibility and ability to make decisions.
“I was far from the youngest person that had been promoted to that role. There were a number of folks around here over the years who have achieved that title at a younger age,” he said. “But it was the responsibility.”
Buhrmaster worked with his grandfather for a portion of his career and continues to work alongside his father, who chairs the bank’s board of directors — an experience Buhrmaster said he wouldn’t trade for the world.
“I’ve been blessed,” he said. “Besides my wife, my dad’s my best friend. He’s been my mentor and role model. He and I don’t agree on everything, yet he has been amazingly supportive in what I do.”
Buhrmaster’s daughter currently serves as a branch manager for the bank’s Niskayuna location — a position he himself held in the early days of his career.
Over the decades the Buhrmaster family has made a name for itself beyond 1st National. The family has served in roles with the Schenectady County Legislature and on school boards throughout the county, and continues to operate the Buhrmaster Energy Group established in 1913.
Buhrmaster has made a name for himself outside the Capital Region, serving in various leadership roles with banking organizations throughout the country, including the Independent Bankers Association of New York State and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Community Bank Advisory Council.
Last year he was elected the Class A director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a position Buhrmaster said “was not something I was looking for,” but which has allowed him a greater voice on issues relating to small businesses.
He also spends hours mentoring other bankers and has worked for years trying to make financial literacy a graduation requirement in New York.
Despite the busy schedule, Buhrmaster said he continues to maintain relationships with customers locally.
“My biggest takeaway is the value of being in a community that supports each other,” Buhrmaster said. “I’ve been blessed.”
