Banker Brouillard is 'Main Street's Mr. Fix-It'
HBJ PHOTO | John Stearns
Rheo Brouillard spends time in Washington every few months urging Congress not to overregulate community banks.
Rheo Brouillard, president and CEO of Willimantic-based Savings Institute Bank and Trust Co., travels to Washington, D.C., about every other month to advocate on behalf of community banks and reasonable regulations.
He's done that since at least 2008, when the financial crisis ushered in a new era of banking regulations.
“I would never have considered myself an activist in any way,” said Brouillard, also president and CEO of the bank's holding company, SI Financial Group Inc. “But the problems the economy went through in 2008, they were not caused by community banks. All the bank bashing that went on really offended me, to be honest with you.”
Lawmakers had been warned of emerging problems in the housing-finance industry, Brouillard said, adding that some mortgage products shouldn't have been sold.
“[Washington lawmakers] get lackadaisical and the pendulum goes too far one way, and then all of a sudden things happen and they're going to be the white knights; they're going to fix it,” Brouillard said. “They could have fixed it a long time ago if they had paid attention to what was going on. So the pendulum goes all the way the other way, and that's where we are now with things like Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau — they're overreactions to a problem.”
Regulation is necessary, but Dodd-Frank is so massive that not every detail was thought out, leading to unintended consequences, he said, citing some new mortgage rules as an example.
“Banks like ours have been operating since 1842 making good residential mortgage loans,” he said. Now, loans now must fit in a box. “We've made loans that fit outside that box for a hundred years because we knew our customer and we knew our market and so now when the people that are outside the box come in, they're being told, 'no,' and that's not right.”
He advocates for reasonableness in banking rules, which is why an American Bankers Association Banking Journal cover story on Brouillard last year was titled, “Main Street's Mr. Fix-It,” adding, he “knows how to roll up his sleeves, whether to rehab a troubled bank or send a message to Washington.”
Brouillard, 61, who marked 20 years as Saving Institute's leader in August, had his hands full when he arrived on the heels of management turmoil.
“There was just a lot of bad press and bad things going on that needed to be cleaned up,” he said.
Under Brouillard's leadership, the bank began a several-year turnaround, growing from about $250 million in assets and eight branches in 1995 to $1.4 billion and 26 branches at June 30 — 21 branches in Connecticut and five in Rhode Island after the bank acquired Newport Bancorp Inc. in 2013.
Fixing Savings Institute wasn't Brouillard's first challenge. In 1989, he became CEO of the failing Danielson Federal Savings and Loan Association, arriving from BayBank in Springfield, Mass.
“I was 35 years old and when you're young and naïve, those kind of challenges look interesting — and they were,” he said of what proved a great learning experience.
He kept the S&L from failing and it was later sold.
Brouillard is genuine, approachable and innovative, said Laurie Gervais, SI's chief administrative officer and 32-year employee.
“He's always looked to the future to grow the bank to make sure that it's about customer service, to make sure that we are top level in what we do,” she said.
Brouillard grew up in Chicopee, Mass., and married his high school sweetheart, Faith, after his junior year at Western New England University in Springfield, where he also played football. The couple has three grown children and six grandchildren, one of whom, now 19, they've raised since she was 3.
The Brouillards live on a 30-acre farm in Hampton and have four horses. They've hosted Ride for the Cure at the ranch for several years, raising up to $65,000 annually for breast cancer research.
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