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our banks are really the heartbeat of the community they keep everything going joining me now is someone who really understands what that means is gene Hewlett she is a CEO and president of me and community bank which is also includes Biddeford savings and mechanic savings in Auburn and first of all I know you've been so busy and and putting out so many different fires but let's talk first about how are things going with me in Community Bank right now we're firmly into this and I just kind of I'm wondering day-to-day how are you keeping things going well we've been very busy and the team has really pulled together everybody in the bank the first priority is obviously the safety of our employees and the safety of our customers so as it became clear what was needed in terms of preventing the spread of this disease and social distancing that's required to tamp it down we took steps to immediately shut down our lobbies of our branches which became effective yesterday we'll serve our customers through drive up windows obviously our mobile and our online banking services are available a lot can be done with customers bank accounts remotely our staff that has to stay on site has been socially distanced in terms of putting them at separate locations in the building and the bulk of our employees have been sent home to work remotely so it's been a big stand up rather quickly and you and you've gotten that you all have done this all together which is really remarkable at how quickly you've been able to kind of get all of your forces together when I think about what we're we're facing you know one thing that I would think that might be a concern is kind of a run on cash and people might go in it's almost like the the scene and it's a wonderful life and and when people want to go and just grab their money has there been that panic and how what has kind of kept that at bay no there has not been that panic and we don't even want to talk about that okay Anna Carrie because seriously it's it's the worst case scenario every bank has to think about it needless to say one of the things we're more concerned about is just logistics of staffing our branches getting our Brinks deliveries emptying the ATMs etc so we're working on the logistics of managing cash but we are very hopeful that there isn't going to be that type of overreaction because that would be detrimental to the entire banking system and actually and I've seen a lot I don't mean interrupt you but I've seen a lot of people talking about don't take all the toilet paper you know leave some for other people and I would think it might be the same kind of mantra as far as cash goes don't yak at all we'd like to remind people you know back during the it's a wonderful life days you couldn't get your cash with an ATM card you know cash is actually one of the dirtiest things you can handle so using your plastic which you can clean with a Lysol wipe is a lot more secure than handling cash so we encourage you to use your plastic and do your online banking and you can track it better too if you have it if you have cash how often do you just you know grab something out of your pocket you're like well where did that 20 or 50 go yes we also don't want our customers coming up and taking large sums of cash and being vulnerable at an ATM for a robbery or anything of that sort so maintain your regular cash withdrawals and protect yourselves and I'll protect the bank so I guess as you're handling the day two days I'm wondering it's and it's hard to predict yet how long you're going to be able to keep branches open and all that so are you you're having daily you said you have twice a day twice a day calls just staying on top of numbers and all of that you start in the morning to talk about first and foremost what we're hearing on the public news but what's happening with our employees who's called in sick what are their concerns anybody who is sick or concerned that they're exposed to somebody who's sick in their home or there were there another environment we're asking the self quarantine so that obviously has impact on staffing moving to the drive-up has helped with that but you know worst case scenario is if we have a real staffing shortage we will direct traffic to centralized branches like our main office in biddeford or our main office in Auburn but we don't have that situation right now but we have our contingency plans you have branches and really kind of well-known blue-collar areas and have you been seeing you know kindnesses have you been seeing people really wanting to help each other out and and I guess you know how are you hoping to keep things you know going in all of your branches the most important thing is open communication when you're not communicating with your customers your employees what you're doing to protect them and protect the bank then people get worried so our strategy is to communicate as openly as as we can be transparent about what we're doing communicate regularly what we are seeing is a lot of kindness our customers come up we had to have one branch closed for two days because of concern and quarantine the staff and the overwhelming feedback from the community was are the employees okay it wasn't anger that they couldn't get into the branch or concern about their money it was as everybody okay please let us know and thankfully everybody was ok the branches reopened no one is in quarantine but you know it is really community banks are very much part of the fabric of of the towns that they they have branches as part of extended family we all know each other we we know our customer we know their families we know their businesses we know the communities that they're doing business in which is actually sort of the other thing that we're very much focused on I like to think about and I having been at the SBA with the desert we have a disaster loan program at the SBA the two words are response and recovery we're kind of in the response stage right now which is securing the operations making sure we're doing everything we can to protect our employees and our customers but we're going to move very quickly into the recovery stage which is working with our borrowers working with our families and our businesses that got disrupted during this time and so we're focused on that sort of simultaneously but or I like to say the benefit of being a community bank is we know the communities that these businesses are in and the impacts of their experience so we can respond appropriately to the situation and that's that's I think really the benefit of being a community bank rather than a large national exactly but you do understand that large national because you were Jean worked for the Obama administration in the SBA and you saw kind of all of the operations on that front what needs to happen for mean and I know that we're thinking about me and I'm thinking about small businesses and we want small businesses to survive and thrive and you know get to the other side of this and you know again this is why we're doing this show about how businesses are gonna retool and down every imagine themselves and reorganize and so I guess I'm wondering from from that perspective are there kind of wheels in motion to help them achieve that yes I would say from the banking industry side the banks themselves obviously have tools that they can employ whether it be interest only for a period of time or deferred payments for customers given their circumstances those are our own internal decisions that will implement one-on-one with customers given their their particular x' on the national and federal side there are emergency legislation being proposed to introduce different types of economic recovery tools during the credit crisis the obama administration passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which had an enormous amount of tools to help small business guaranteed loans special micro loan programs payment deferrals etc so those programs are being revisited do we need to roll out a similar recovery plan as has that there are other initiatives that are being proposed i I think the the Congress was or the Senate was in in session until past midnight last night dealing with these pieces of legislation and our legislature was working through the day yesterday and are bringing a package to the fame board so I think on a state level and the federal level they'll be new proposals coming forward it takes a while to implement anything as comprehensive as that so that's why I encourage all of our our customers and our communities to understand there is no civil civil bullet it's not going to be fixed immediately but work with your lender as soon as possible staying parent and opening those lines of communication about what you're going through helps us respond and sort of bridge a gap until there's a longer term solution for you and I just so folks know fame as the Finance Authority of me yeah and so you'll you'll have information also on your website yes about as programs become confirmed part of the problem is we're getting calls right now because press releases are going out that legislation is being introduced because legislation is introduced doesn't mean it's an in place right it hasn't been over I work on conclusion that's gonna happen yes it hasn't been voted on it hasn't been approved it hasn't been implemented so we will stay abreast of all the things that have actually been passed so that we can inform our customers the one thing that I know that Governor Mills and many of the state officials and our federal officials love talking about is the SBA's economic injury program it's through their disaster loan program and it is a it's an excellent program it does have its paperwork burden and you have to apply it is a it is alone so there are credit standards so it's not a grant and that gets misunderstood a lot that they're in you know they the SBA is a disaster program it's going to be grant its alone and you have to qualify for the loan so you have to make an application you have to qualify and then the SBA has to fund it it is a direct loan from the federal government it's not a bank guaranteed loan so that's something I want to make sure everybody understands they'll be so two tranches they'll be direct lending through the economic recovery side of the SBA but then there are also SBA guaranteed loans for banks to make loans with the backing of the government for small businesses to improve working capital so that's something people can be working on at home as they're trying to kind of find things that they can do that are actually going to help themselves maybe you can give us just maybe even three things that you can think of that might help people with their finances as they're at home I mean is there any kind of a blueprint that they could kind of work off of I think if you're concerned that well first of all if you're concerned that you're not going to be able to make your loan payments the first thing to do is draft a hardship letter write a letter that says is why I won't be able to make my loan payment and work with your your lender your bank to get some relief the second is if you need new money then start getting your financial package together we need your tax returns not just a bank the SBA the government are going to need your tax returns they're going to need your most current profit and loss statement they're going to need a statement of how you expect to recover when and that's a big if when you will be able to to get operations going again and what is impacting your cash flow problem is it because you're shut down is it because you're slight supply chain has been interrupted your cost of goods have gone up you can't produce your your your product give us an explanation of what is impacting it because that's going to be part of the assessment of whether or not you're going to qualify for a loan so people really can be doing some homework during some time and you know just snap out of it I know it's depressing and everything but really this is this is work for the future this is how you can help yourself I would also say you know those steps are for people who either have a loan or need a loan but I would say there are plenty of people that are tenants and they're renters a small business that is a renter to a building and they can't make their rent payment that's outside of our purview but I want to say talk to your landlord your landlord won't be able to make their mortgage payments if they're not getting the rent payment so they're motivated to work with you and they also don't want to have a vacant building with a bunch of tenants or businesses that go under during this time because how are they going to recover themselves so I had a small business call me very concerned that she was not going to be a hair salon was not going to be able make her her rent payment next month and that her tenant and her landlord would call her lease and I said no they're not going to be as motivated to do that as they are to work with you call them talk with them they will understand that's my advice is keep those lines of communication open yeah don't go hiding don't don't bother you know sheets over your head and that I don't know how you're doing it you're working a lot of hours and you're you're working on staying healthy yourself and all of that are you also finding you're clearly talking to the community taking a lot of phone calls are you also speaking directly with the governor and are you helping her with SBA decisions I'm not directly I did communicate with the Commissioner of the Department of Economic Community Development yesterday I'm more I'm on the board of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce we had a conference call yesterday morning with the decd in the governor's office I'm on the board of the Maine Bankers Association we had a conference call so I think as an industry we're all working closer together I have because of my own historic background I have some perspective on the SBA lending programs that I have shared directly with my colleagues in state government but I also have been in close contacts with my former colleagues from the SBA about what they're doing many of them are either still in the government or gone on to other banks or within the SBA industry we're all talking amongst each other about what pieces of legislation and this is going to sound terrible but there's always pieces of legislation that are introduced in crisis times that sound good on paper or it may be politically motivated that are not well thought through it really is incumbent upon the our congressional leaders to work with industry to see what works we saw this during the the economic crisis in 2008 and 2009 there were pieces of legislation introduced to pass loan programs to help small businesses that were not able to be implemented they didn't understand the system's limitations staffing limitations regulatory limitations of the banks so you have Congress passing you know legislation that sounds good but is completely unworkable that's a concern and so I've been talking it's a waste of time it's a waste of time and so we have been as an industry talking there are trade associations you speak as a voice not as individuals speak as a voice to our legislative leaders about what is the best solution so we don't you know waste time well I'm glad to hear about the collegiality among bankers in the state of Maine and I'm really just grateful that you are willing to be you know so willing to be a communicator and you're not hiding and that you're that's what people are looking for they're looking for leadership they are looking for people who will talk because we're all in this together and there's so many questions so you know as this was unfolding so quickly I give a lot of credit to Maine Bankers Association they called all the banks together on a conference call to say what are you doing what are you doing because you know it's hard to be the first one to shut down your bank lobbies it's hard to be the first one to send all your employees home I think about banks as part of the essential infrastructure whether it's pharmacies hospitals grocery stores and banks everybody else could stay home we have to stay operational so it's im ortant that we all sort of work together and say okay what are you doing so we all kind of come out together and and create that sense of calm and we've done as an industry a great job with that my hats off to crisp income at Maine bankers for coordinating that and for all of our colleagues to be really transparent with each other about what they're seeing and it's helping us prepare Mainers are tough mm-hmm will we get through this absolutely this is maybe inappropriate but you know we always say we are at the end of the line you know Maine's always had this chip on its shoulder that you know we're at the end of the line we don't get all the the business we don't get all the the commerce being at the end of the line is working for us right now we have less cases of the virus and in anybody else on the eastern seaboard and so we were able to respond quickly and put in place our pandemic response plans to stop start the social distancing quickly and I'm really very hopeful that it will stop the spread of the illness that's one piece of it the other piece is the tale of the economic crisis that's coming and I I don't want to be alarmist but if you look at the economic crisis that happened in two thousand eight that was a financial crisis this is a crisis of different proportion it is impacting our supply chains it is impacting our ability to just open our doors it is a packed impacting the financial sector the you know community banks I think are more protected we have banks that are worldwide they have worldwide operations when you look at what's happening in China in Italy in France in Spain what's that going to do to those big international banks that I I'm concerned about the financial markets as that gets an impact so I would just say hang tight it's gonna be a bumpy ride but we're very resilient at Maine we support each other we stick together our our banking industry is very very strong and you know we'll get through this we'll get to the other end we'll get to the other end healthier be kind be nice be kind not others right absolutely in that gene Hewlett thank you so much or you need anybody so great to have you here and you've helped to lay a lot of fears so thank you I hope so thank you best of luck to you thank you