Tom Sega has a Zoom conversation with Steve Burgess, The CEO of National Bank of Commerce and one of the co-founders of Burgess Family Sugarhouse, on this week’s episode of Leader of the Pack, a podcast by Duluth Pack. In this podcast episode, Steve walks us through his role as CEO of the National Bank of Commerce and how community banks differ from national and regional banks. About halfway through, Steve switches gears as he and Tom talk to listeners about how Steve and his wife, Kathy began their own business here in Duluth, MN, Burgess Family Sugarhouse.

Background on Steve Burgess

Steve was born and raised on his family farm in Darlington, Wisconsin. Steve was one of five children, and his family farm had a variety of animals including cattle and swine, along with being a certified seed dealer of corn, soybean, and oats. Tom comments that Steve must have an excellent work ethic from growing up on a farm and never having a day off. Steve responds that they worked hard on the farm, but his father always made sure they took 5-6 days off for a family vacation each year. During high school, Steve was inspired by his agriculture teacher and wanted to become a teacher himself. Steve went to the University of Wisconsin, Platteville with this plan and majored in agricultural education in 1978. After his four years at university, Steve was offered an internship at Production Credit Association, and he states that it was an easy 6 credits that he couldn’t pass up. Upon taking the internship, Steve thoroughly enjoyed the combination of agricultural finance and banking and got a focus on that with his degree. This led to the start of Steve’s career in finance rather than education.

The Beginning of Steve’s Banking Career

Tom asks Steve how he started in the finance world and Steve explains that for his first position he spent three years with Farm Credit when he received a call from a stranger saying that he was going to hire Steve. Steve explains that he had never met this person before and was surprised to hear someone say that they were going to hire him versus offering a position. This person gave Steve a check to come and visit Neillsville, WI, saying that Steve would fall in love with this bank and community and start his career there. Steve did love the town and moved to Neillsville where he became an Agricultural Lender for three years before at the age of 28, the CEO of the bank retired and asked Steve to take over as the new CEO. Steve comments to Tom that he was in way of his head, but he had a great team that worked with him and supported him as the CEO which was a huge relief. Tom asks Steve what the biggest challenge was in taking up the role of CEO. He responds by commenting that at the age of 28 his biggest concern was, “are they going to take me for real? So I grew out a beard and tried to act older than I was and that worked out real well”. In truth Steve says that being young forced him to work extra hard to make the bank successful and a large part of driving success as a small bank that focused primarily in lending to agriculture and commercial/retail portfolios was relationship building.

Tom and Steve chat a lot about the importance of relationship building and how that continues to be a major part of Steve’s role now as the CEO of the National Bank of Commerce which is a community bank headquartered in Superior, Wisconsin. Steve talks about how he views the relationships that a community bank has with its customers as one of the things that differentiates his bank from larger regional or national banks. Steve says “Our bank operates by trying to view our customers as a whole and to see what their aspirations and goals are, and we do that by having a strong relationship with our customers. We marry that with the tools that we have to create a win-win situation, so we are both going down the same path and have each other’s best interest in mind”. Steve tells Tom that a win-win is how the bank grows and how Steve has grown the banks he has been involved in previously. Tom asks Steve to talk a little more about how a bank runs because it is a little different than one would think when it comes to liabilities and assets. Steve explains that for a bank, it does not view customer deposits as assets but as liabilities because the customer can request those funds back at any time with potential interest. On the other hand, when a bank issues a loan to a customer it is an asset that the bank collects on. This is something that all banks have in common, but there are some major differences that you can see in banking with a community or local bank versus a larger bank. Steve highlights these differences with Tom with a major callout being that local banks keep your funds local versus sending your money to a regional or national headquarters to be redistributed. Steve tells Tom that the National Bank of Commerce has 1.2 billion dollars in assets and that allows them to do some things that a small local bank can’t do and a large national bank won’t do. The best part of this for Steve is that all of these funds are kept locally to help the community prosper and grow.  

Steve’s Role As CEO of The National Bank Of Commerce

Tom and Steve talk about his role at CEO of the National Bank of Commerce and Tom asks him to describe a typical day. Steve jokes, “you know I often ask that question of myself. I don’t know what a typical day is.” He goes on to say that no two days are the same and he enjoys that part of the job. He spends a lot of his time connecting with customers, working with community groups, and working with members of his bank, but a phone call can change his entire day plan. Along with his work as CEO Steve is involved with several boards and organizations including the Regional Economic Indicators Forum (REIF) which was started by the National Bank of Commerce, the Essentia Health Duluth Clinic Foundation, the Minnesota Bankers Association, the Northland Country Club, and is a Chairman of the WI Business Development Board of Directors. Tom asks Steve how he spreads himself so thin and Steve comments that he is not heavily involved in these organizations at the same time. In the same breath Steve also states that in his position, he feels that 50% of his time should be donated back to the community that he serves and that giving back to his community is extremely important to him. Despite being a very busy individual Steve has also started a personal business venture with his wife and co-founder, Kathy Burgess.

Starting Burgess Family Sugarhouse

Steve and Kathy founded their family business, Burgess Family Sugarhouse within Duluth, MN city limits on 80 acres of land where they create pure maple syrup from start to finish. They tap over 2,500 maple trees there and last year ran 16,000 gallons of sap through their sugarhouse. Tom asks Steve and Kathy to explain a little bit about how they began tapping maple trees and creating syrup. Kathy tells Tom about when their kids were small and the family would all gather buckets and feed the fire in the sugarhouse to create their own pure maple syrup. During that time the Burgess family made about 20 gallons of maple syrup. Kathy talks about how their kids loved making maple syrup and wanted that same experience for their children. With that thought in mind, Kathy and Steve began tapping maple trees again and while they never planned on having this family passion become a business it has become just that.

Tom asks Kathy and Steve about the processes of creating maple syrup and while they started by tapping the trees with buckets and cooking the syrup over a fire that process now looks very different. The family now taps over 2,500 trees pulling 1% of sap from each tree and bottles over 400 gallons of pure maple syrup. Steve goes on to talk about the process of reducing the sap by pushing the water in the sap through a semi-permeable membrane using a reverse osmosis machine that creates a syrup that is 14%-15% sugar content. After that phase, they then use evaporation to make the sugar content in the syrup closer to 66% or 67%. Once the syrup hits that point it is then filtered and bottled for consumption. Steve states that this process takes less than 24 hours, and he believes that is part of why the flavor profile is so unique. Although they end up with just over 400 gallons of pure maple syrup, Steve and Kathy must collect much more in sap. In general, for every gallon of maple syrup created you need roughly 40 gallons of sap. Kathy and Steve explain that just last year alone they ran over 16,000 gallons of sap through their system and this year they hope to do even more.

During this episode of Leader Of The Pack, Tom and Steve discuss his interesting pathway into his role as CEO of the National Bank of Commerce and his newest entrepreneurship venture with his wife Kathy as co-owners of Burgess Family Sugarhouse! If you are interested in trying some of their delicious pure maple syrup you can find it directly on their website at burgessfamilysugarhouse.com or by stopping at their local shop on their land. You can also find it at a variety of local businesses, including Duluth Pack’s flagship retail store in canal park. Thank you, Steve, and Kathy, for joining us on this week’s episode of Leader of the Pack and sharing the triumphs of becoming a CEO of a community bank, starting your own business, and for being a friend of Duluth Pack.