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Zions Bank recently named Toni Nielsen president of the bank's Western Idaho region.
Nielsen holds a bachelor's degree in finance from Ball State University. She has more than 20 years of experience in the banking industry, including her most recent role as Idaho president at Bank of America.
Nielsen serves on the boards of the Boise Public Schools Education Foundation and St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center Foundation.
Zions Bank operates 23 branch offices in Idaho. Eleven of those are in the state's western region, which is headquartered in Boise and spans west to Canyon County and north through Lewiston and Moscow.
How does the bank's "footprint" in the region look to you? Where and when does Zions plan to add branch offices?
To me, Zions Bank has a small number of branches. We've had a presence in Idaho since we acquired 11 mostly rural bank branches from Wells Fargo in 1997. This gave Zions a presence in rural communities and in the outskirts of larger communities. Today, there are 23 branches and five loan production offices, and the bank is ranked in the top 10 of Idaho's 34 banks.
The strategy for expansion in western Idaho is the most aggressive in the entire bank. In the past five years, Zions has opened five branches and three additional loan production offices in the region. Later this month, we'll open another loan production office in Fruitland. We are actively looking for additional sites for branches in and around Boise and surrounding communities.
We've also identified a need for...