Charlie Schmalz is optimistic about the policy environment for community banks. As chairman of ABA’s Community Bankers Council and president and CEO of East Wisconsin Savings Bank in Kaukauna, Wis., he outlines provisions in S. 2155 that will help his bank — including Qualified Mortgage designation for portfolio loans and the community bank leverage ratio — and describes it as “the beginning of common-sense banking legislation that needs to be passed.”

“As primarily a mortgage lender, [Dodd-Frank] has put a tremendous amount of work and extra scrutiny into what is traditionally a plain-vanilla kind of business,” says Schmalz, who was profiled in the January/February 2019 issue of the ABA Banking Journal. “That’s a tremendous benefit to the country…that small community banks like ours are out there doing quality work.”

In this episode, Schmalz highlights the program for the upcoming ABA Conference for Community Bankers, Feb. 10-13 in San Diego, and he talks about the persistence of the mutual banking model, capital issues that mutuals face, community bank technology plays, the economy in eastern Wisconsin — and the best place to get Wisconsin cheese curds.