Pub. 8 2019 Issue 4

July/August 2019 5 l e a d i n g a d v o c a t e f o r t h e b a n k i n g i n d u s t r y i n k a n s a s K urt Knutson has been elected by his peers to serve a one year term as Chairman of the Board for the Kansas Bankers Association (KBA). His term began at KBA’s annual meeting in Colorado Springs, CO, on August 3, 2019. Knutson is Founder, Chairman and CEO of $200 million Freedom Bank in Overland Park. Knutson was born and raised in Waterloo, Iowa, a manufacturing town in the northeastern part of the state where John Deere tractors are built. His father went to work for John Deere shortly after returning home from the Korean War. In 1953, as farmers’ demands for power grew beyond the capabilities of the 2-cylinder engine, Deere launched a top-secret development project. Kurt’s dad was quietly assigned to the small team that was asked to create a completely new, more powerful tractor, built completely from scratch. The few who knew about the project were under strict orders to tell no one – not even their wives. To maintain such secrecy, the group worked out of a former grocery store known as the “Meat Market” in Waterloo. The team produced a new generation of tractors led by the John Deere 4010. CHAIRMAN KURT A. KNUTSON The agricultural economy, John Deere and Waterloo all played a role in Kurt moving to Kansas City. Knutson graduated from high school in 1978 and from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1982. The economy was in really rough shape at the time, and the agricultural economy wasn’t any better. John Deere was the primary employer in Waterloo with approximately 15,000 employees, but in 1982, 11,000 were laid off. Rath Packing Company, another large Waterloo employer, was also going bankrupt at the time. “I knew I needed to move to a more diverse economy. The Kansas City area felt comfortable, so I picked up a chamber of commerce listing and started knocking on doors,” said Knutson. Persistence paid off on a Friday afternoon stop at Russell Stover Candies. Instead of Kansas City however, he was hired as a sales representative for Colorado and southern Wyoming. After about a year with Russell Stover, Bankers Trust of Des Moines, Iowa, called and wanted to hire him for a management trainee role starting in the commercial credit department. “I had just returned from a week-long swing out to western Colorado. Things had been going well, I was in the top ten percent of the sales force nationally, but after a spirited debate in a chain drug store in western Colorado about Easter baskets, I wanted to learn more about different companies in a variety of industries. Banking sounded like a great opportunity to do just that.” Two years in the commercial credit department and a year as a commercial banker, at Bankers Trust, proved to be the beginning of what has now been a 36-year career in banking. Knutson returned to Kansas City in the fall of 1986, going to work for a $200 million suburban community bank as a commercial new business development officer. When he arrived at the bank, the examiners had just left and bank management asked him to spend some time with , Bill Axtell, an attorney they had hired to help them identify the problems in the loan portfolio. “I worked across the desk from Bill every day. He was really thorough in explaining why we were doing things. He would hold the phone so I could hear both sides of a conversation. I was going through the files to see what went wrong, so I wouldn’t make those same mistakes myself down the road,” added Knutson. In the fall of 1987, sadly and unexpectedly, Axtell found out he had cancer and died one week later. Knutson ended up taking over all workout activity for another two years. “I got about 40 years of experience in the three years of workouts,” said Knutson. Knutson’s career has led to a variety of roles in banking since that time. He has worked with regional banks, the largest national banks, and community banks. His roles have included new business development, capital markets and corporate finance and roles as the chief credit officer, and as president of a bank. That variety of experience gave him the desire to form a de novo bank. In 2005, he stepped away from his job to begin the process of putting together what would become Freedom Bank. He met his wife Leanne, of 28 years now, in Kansas City in 1988. Coincidentally, she grew up about 90 miles away from Waterloo in Clear Lake, Iowa. They both loved the Kansas City area and have made their home in Overland Park. They have two children: Katie, who is a neo-natal intensive care unit nurse at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, and Jack, who is entering his senior year at the University of Kansas, majoring in business. “Leanne grew up as a child of an entrepreneur, and when we talked about starting a bank, she was on board. She understood the amount of hours it meant getting everything started and running the business. Katie was 10 and Jack was seven at the time and this could not have been done without her tremendous support at home,” Kurt added. In February of 2005, Knutson began calling on business owners he had become familiar with throughout his career to see if they shared his vision for the new bank. KBA’s 2019-2020 Chairman, Kurt Knutson (Founder, Chairman and CEO) Freedom Bank, Overland Park.