NewHavenBIZ

n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 8 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 31 People need to be active, physically and mentally. They need to experience new ideas, new information and new ways of learning. All those things are available to us here. Steve & Georgia Jennings, residents since 2014 Write your next chapter at Whitney Center. Learn more about our Life Care senior living community. Call (203) 439-6297 or visit www.whitneycenter.com to schedule a personal appointment. Rethinking retail banking Aer opening its doors with ambitions to become a retail player in the city, Start Community Bank scaled back those efforts in 2014, closing a branch in Fair Haven. "When we launched the bank — even with the bank's name, 'Start' — we saw ourselves as much more of a retail bank," DeStefano says. "What the market told us was that they wanted us to be a small-busi- ness and real-estate bank. So while we have probably the cheapest retail product available — for open- ing checking accounts and such — we've evolved into a small-business bank." Goals for the future? "Achiev- ing profitability, growing in size... evolving our mission to a place that's really appropriate for this community has been a set of accomplishments for us. We don't intend to sell the franchise; we intend to be here for the long term and we intend to grow safely and carefully." In his nearly two decades as mayor, DeStefano was known as a financial problem-solver and tireless booster of the city as a good place to do business. When he took the job at Start in the waning months of his mayoral term in 2013, DeStefano told the New Haven Register his goals was ensuring the survival of the bank in the aermath of the financial crisis. "Right now it's a very small bank that needs to grow and achieve financial sustainability and sticking power in New Haven… It's a good use of my time, building a New Haven institution," he said. e son of a New Haven cop, DeStefano returned to his home- town aer earning two degrees from UConn and quickly become known as a City Hall problem-solv- er. His nearly two decades as mayor were marked by new construction downtown, nearly $1.6 billion invested in a state-of-the-art school construction program, conversion of derelict factories across the city into residential and office complex- es and the growth of New Haven's bioscience sector. "I think New Haven has emerged in Connecticut particu- larly as a new economy leader — I think it understands its com- petitive advantages in precision manufacturing, biosciences and lifestyle, as the home of a great research institution and a world- class facility at Yale New Haven Health," DeStefano says. "Among all the places in Con- necticut, I think New Haven has over the last 20 years been able to define its economic future, provide some mobility to the folks who live here, economic and social mobility. It's become a more opti- mistic place. at said, it needs to do more." n FOCUS: Banking & Finance "We're not in competition with the big banks or the big regionals — our mission is to be close to the community of which we're a part." - John Stefano Jr. Executive Vice President, Start Community Bank

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