I hope you and your loved ones are doing well, notwithstanding the pandemic and economic downturn. As you all know, this has been an extraordinary year, and there is still more to go. COVID-19 has had a very uneven impact on industries and individuals – we see it in our conversations with our clients and review of their financial statements. Some companies and people are far more negatively impacted than others. Of course, none of us has a crystal ball, but I choose to remain optimistic about the future and, thus, am expecting continued improvement in public health and the economy in 2021.

Being realistic about the economic and public health environment, we all have to make strategic and day-to-day decisions which are best for our businesses. Please know that the team at River City Bank remains committed to providing you with exceptional service. Our office staff has been amazingly effective in making the transition from working in our offices to working from their homes. Our courageous branch staff has not missed a beat in providing great customer experiences while being on the front line in terms of exposure to COVID-19.

Perhaps you are expecting pearls of wisdom about the economy, interest rates, and banking from me. I’m not sure that you have ever gotten that in this column, and you certainly won’t this time. Rather, working from home over the past six months has allowed me the luxury of reading more books than I typically would. While we all have different preferences for our reading, you might want to give one or two of these books a try as I enjoyed and took something from them all:

Red Notice by Bill Browder
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Dark Towers by David Enrich
The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger
The Match by Mark Frost
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

Hope to see you soon.