As local as banking gets
Lori Meads, at Seamen’s, personifies a conscious niche
A week before this year’s Blessing of the Fleet in Provincetown, fishermen and their families convened for an annual dinner at the Knights of Columbus, across Commercial Street from town hall. A long table groaning with potluck lined one wall as a card table held plastic cups of wine for $3, prompting a wonder: When was the last time you got a glass of wine for $3?
“Good question,” laughed Lori Meads, taking dollars and pouring. That elicited another question:
When was the last time you saw the President and CEO of a bank with almost $500 million in assets standing behind a makeshift table on a warm Friday night pouring wine for fishermen and families?
The answer: Never.
The bank’s name is Seamen’s, after all, and this being Provincetown that evokes some stupid foolishness about a linguistic coincidence related to sexual biology.
But Meads shrugs that off. She knows full well that the bank, started in 1851, the oldest community bank on Cape, was created to support the most profitable fleet in Massachusetts at that time, more than 50 whaling ships and schooners loading, offloading, sailing from 40-odd wharves that stuck out like porcupine quills into the harbor.
The bank’s first customer walked into the Union Wharf Exchange building and deposited $36 for safekeeping.
These days the bank has five branches reaching to Eastham, loaning as far as Dennis, 70 employees. Assets in 1992 were around $100 million; when COVID struck people poured money into local banks and Seamen’s hit $500 million but that subsided and normalized at around $440m. The bank still works with fishermen but the tourist-based commercial market plus crazy residential real estate values drive activity. Loan portfolio is $317 million, up almost $40 million in 2023 (Meads estimates that Seamen’s writes 80 percent of commercial loans in Provincetown). Deposits are close to $390 million, net income $2.6 million.
So where does this slot Seamen’s in the banking world?
Small, independent, healthy, the bank has defied consolidation and mergers that have dominated the industry. Cape Cod Cooperative and the Cape Cod Five also lay claim to “local,” (though the Five has extended well beyond the bridges), but there is a unique intimacy to Seamen’s, reflecting the Outer Cape’s unusual nature.
Meads is the personification. A Cape Cod native, Provincetown High School grad (class of 1986, 34 students), Lori’s first job after college was working at The Gap in Hyannis, living at home in Truro with the folks, “spending money on gas more than anything else,” she laughs.
Her father knew then-bank president Richard Berrio, so Lori got an interview to become a teller — no surprise she got the job and started in January, 1992.
When John Roderick, from another family with deep Provincetown pedigree, left the now-vanished Cape Cod Bank & Trust to succeed Berrio, he observed Meads interacting with the public, dealing with issues.
“He needed an administrative assistant,” she recalls, “and that became me. Twenty years sitting to the left of the President and CEO, you learn a lot.”
Roderick mentored (she also got an MBA to shore up credentials), then ensconced her as “executive vice president” in 2016.
“Back then women at the bank weren’t in senior roles,” she politely acknowledges, but when Roderick was ready for succession, “John was adamant he didn’t want an outside search. He was afraid the bank might lose its culture, sent in a different direction.”
Meads became the first woman President and CEO in 2017.
Does this kind of “local” matter? It doesn’t define lending practices — “local” banks can be as stodgy, conservative, insular as any big bank. Seamen’s had that reputation for decades though under Meads’ leadership the impression has evolved. Her argument for local importance is rooted in community context:
“Look, there is no ‘call center’ here. When you have a problem, a person picks up the phone, there’s no ‘menu.’ And if there’s an issue, people want to walk into the bank to talk about it, which is what happens.
“We don’t have all these titles like ‘Relationships Manager.’ We have customer service, that’s it.
“We also know what’s going on, we frequent our businesses, we see people in the grocery store and at events. We’re not owned by stockholders and people who don’t live here, our objective is not to increase their incomes. We’re owned by our depositors and our goal is to give back to them, and this community.”
As if on cue, sitting over lunch at Bubala’s restaurant in Provincetown, the kitchen door swung open and out came “Big John,” who has been cutting fish in that kitchen for 30 years. He walked up to Meads and let her know a few things:
One, he appreciates that the branch put up more American flags. Two, the tellers are great and make his day. Three, he likes that the interest rate on new-money CDs is a competitive five percent so he feels good about adding deposits.
Then he stomped back to work in the kitchen.
Meads looked over.
“You couldn’t make that up,” she laughed. “We may not have an investment arm, maybe the ATMs don’t talk to you, or we may not have capital for the latest and greatest techniques. So therefore people think community banks are going to die?”
She paused, then answered her rhetorical question:
“I don’t think so.”
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Great perspective on "local" banking. Thankful we've been with Cape Cod Five for many years, but just a little sad at the expansion and changes of personnel. It used to be smiles, hellos, knew our names. This is not a complaint to the new people - they're all helpful and nice. It's wonderful to see that Seaman's hasn't changed.
Inspiring!