California Bank & Trust has earned the appreciation and confidence of many long-time customers. When the bank combined predecessor institutions and incorporated in 1998, more than a few customers came along, and have remained CB&T clients for decades. Here are some of their stories.
A customer for 60 years
John Guthrie opened a checking account in 1964 at the Claremont branch of what later became California Bank & Trust, and has been a customer ever since.
At 101 years old, Guthrie has had an impressive career. A graduate of Carnegie Tech, the precursor to Carnegie Mellon University, he worked as an engineer during World War II. While stationed near a military aircraft control tower in the vicinity of the English Channel, he instructed pilots of badly damaged airplanes how to safely land their planes. He also co-invented the Stinger, a shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missile that is still in use today.
After a successful career at General Dynamics as an engineer from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, Guthrie changed direction and went to work for Flight Systems Inc. in Orange County.
“Developing new weapons systems was in a state of flux at that time,” says his daughter, Kari. “So my father decided to leave that industry while it was still his choice.”
Six decades ago, Guthrie found his bank for life at the Claremont branch. His banker, Lori Duran, has been working with Guthrie since 2012. Until a few years ago, Duran says Guthrie would come into the branch almost every Friday to do his banking, dressed in a jacket and suit pants, and ready to offer chocolate mints to the staff.
“He would tell us all about what he had done that day and what he planned to do in the coming days,” she says. “He especially appreciated our teller, Helen Mitsui, who retired at the end of 2023.”
A resident of Pomona, Guthrie says he’s always appreciated the personal service and “the fact that they know me there and their efficiency. Why would I change banks when the service is so great there?”
Off to an early start
Part of Tracy Zemke’s success as a San Diego entrepreneur can be attributed to her comfort level with financial responsibility from a very early age. When she was nine years old, she opened a checking account at a major bank that not only held her allowance money and included checks printed with her name, but was her source of payment for purchases at local retailers.
Zemke’s mother taught her how to fill out a check, sign it and present her California ID to a cashier who almost always accepted the check because Zemke proved who she is. Grossmont Bank in San Diego, where she opened that first checking account, became California Bank & Trust in 1998.
Today, Zemke is the owner of Personal Touch Dining, a San Diego-based wedding and special-event catering company that she opened in 1988. In 2023, her company’s annual revenue exceeded $9 million.
Zemke isn’t at all surprised that she’s been a CB&T customer for more than 50 years. She has always appreciated the service she’s received from the bank, and still owns the vintage tote bag she received in 1972 when she opened that first checking account as a child.
Robert Whitelaw was her banker from the day she opened her business account in 1988 at the El Cajon branch until he retired at the end of 2022. “I have always found a home at CB&T. It’s more than a banking relationship,” Zemke says. “It’s a personal relationship.”
Joshua Hill is now Zemke’s banker and he says, “Tracy has not only been a long-time client, but CB&T has been a customer of hers, as well. Personal Touch Dining has provided catering services for our annual Christmas parties and other special events.”
No matter what she needs from the bank, Zemke says she can communicate once and it’s taken care of. When her company moved into a new building at the end of December 2023, “we had all these different accounts with the bank, and with one email from me, they changed all the addresses on the accounts, including our credit cards.”
That long-term relationship with the bank “is key to our success,”Zemke says.
The bank that welcomed him in In
December 1987, Steven Papai simply wanted to open a business checking account. He didn’t need a loan. He had just established a document destruction (paper shredding) business, Berkeley Shreds, and was holding $3,000 in customers’ checks as his planned initial deposit.
But that wasn’t good enough for two U.S. banks, one of which Papai had done his personal banking for a decade. “The banker there said to me, ‘Why don’t you come back in five years when you’ve demonstrated that you can operate a company?’
So Papai kept walking in the same neighborhood in Albany, California. At a corner, he came to Sumitomo Bank and went inside. The banker there happily accepted his money, even though Papai had never banked there. “That’s a big part of the reason I’ve stayed with them all these years,” he says.
About a decade later, that bank became California Bank & Trust. Along the way—and ever since—Papai has appreciated what his bank has done for him, including with his personal banking.
“They provide terrific customer service and personal relationships that have guided me in my business career and have made all of our banking easier,” he says. “I know all the Albany branch employees by their first name.”
Mary Yuan has been his personal and business banker for the past 25 years. She has continued to be the point person for him, even after he and his wife Cameron retired to Cooperstown, New York.“
Steve prefers having a banker who can be responsive to his needs and concerns,” Yuan says. “He’s not very much into the high-tech way of banking and appreciates the human element.”
When the Papais wanted to sell their home in Berkeley, CB&T became the couple’s escrow center and provided necessary legal documents. “They did everything we needed,” Papai says. “Yuan provides an amazing level of personal interest and consideration and care of our finances.”