Monday, April 29, 2024
The First National Bank of Granbury has undergone a leadership change as of Tuesday, Jan. 2.
James Hodges, current president and CEO, will retire after almost 53 years working at FNB.
“My wife, Su Lin, passed away a year and three months ago, and we had been married for 52 years, I think, so life changed for me in a flash,” Hodges told the HCN. “The things that were important to me before all of a sudden were not important to me. I can’t explain it, I can’t understand it, it’s just the way it happened.”
Hodges said he knew it was finally time to do something different — although he still doesn’t know what that “something different” might be.
“Before she died, Su Linn looked at me, she got the finger out — and when she gets the finger out, you better damn well listen — and she said, ‘Don’t you make any drastic decisions before the year’s out after I pass,’” Hodges said. “I should’ve asked her what she meant by ‘drastic,’ but I decided it was time for me to check out, to do something different.”
Hodges started working for the First National Bank of Granbury as a teller July 1, 1971. In 1975, he was promoted to vice president cashier before being promoted to executive vice president cashier nine years later in 1984.
In 2015, he became the bank’s president and CEO, the position that will soon be taken over by current Executive Vice President and Chief Lending Officer Mark Webb.
Webb served as a former bank examiner with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Hodges said Webb examined FNB a couple of times, leading Hodges to joke that the bank “had to hire him to get him off their back.”
“He’s been a wonderful asset to us,” Hodges said. “I don’t know how we would have grown and kept solvent if he hadn’t had been here, honestly.”
Webb was born and raised in Saginaw and attended Boswell High School, where he met his wife, Launi, whose father convinced him to attend college and pursue a career in banking.
After graduating with a BBA degree in corporate finance from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Webb launched his banking career in 1987 when he began working for the OCC.
Webb joined the First National Bank of Granbury in 1995 as a loan officer. He was promoted to senior vice president a few years later and was appointed to the board of directors in 2005.
According to an article in Bankers Digest, Webb is extremely active in the Granbury community, serving as treasurer of the Pecan Plantation Homeowner’s Association, Granbury Opera House, Mambrino Baptist Church and Granbury/Hood County EMS. He currently leads a Sunday school class for “a small group of sweet, patient people” at Granbury Baptist Church, where he also serves as trustee.
“I spend probably too much time studying the scriptures and not enough time studying problems at the bank — but I don't really care,” Webb told the HCN, chuckling.
According to the Bankers Digest article, Webb said he is looking forward to finishing up his work life as president and CEO at First National Bank, with his focus being on “serving customers while protecting the bank.”
Following his retirement, Hodges will continue to serve on the FNB Board of Directors and will most likely still grace the bank with his presence periodically — but now, it will finally be on his own time.
