Although its name might suggest otherwise, Linda Elkin wants Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank to become known as a community bank here.

Recently promoted to Northeast Washington region president, Elkin oversees 21 U.S. Bank branches in Spokane and Lincoln counties, with a total of 150 employees. U.S. Bank's main Spokane branch occupies eight of the 15 floors in the U.S. Bank Building at 428 W. Riverside.

Heads of the bank's commercial banking, private banking, and trust and wealth management divisions in the region report directly to Elkin. She says she already has begun to encourage bank employees toward greater involvement and service in their communities.

"Historically, we have not been fully engaged in community organizations and initiatives," she says. "For U.S. Bank to re-establish its foothold in the community, we must be actively involved in the community."

U.S. Bank went from being the third largest Inland Northwest Small Business Administration lender in 2006 to the 11th largest in 2008 and 2009. Elkin says U.S. Bank is in a good position here financially to begin making more loans to qualified applicants, and she wants to increase the bank's SBA loans.

"We are actively lending, particularly to small businesses," she says.

"Our deposits are way up," she adds, and says that home mortgages have been a "huge growth segment for us in the past 12 to18 months. Even though the housing market is weak, with home mortgage rates as low as they are, there is still a tremendous opportunity to refinance or accelerate a mortgage to build wealth more quickly."

The bank's foundation is continuing to donate $100,000 annually to nonprofits in the Spokane area, along with maintaining a separate marketing budget to support events and community activities, and she says, "I fully expect to grow that."

The Journal of Business reported in March that U.S. Bank's total Spokane County deposits at the end of 2009 were $719 million. That was up from $679.1 million a year earlier, but down from $732 million at the end of 2006.

Elkin's goal for the bank is to be No. 1 or No. 2 in deposit balance market share here. At the end of 2009, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reports put it in fourth place.

"It's a big goal for us in Spokane, but we certainly believe it is achievable given the strength and stability of U.S. Bank and our efforts locally," she says.

Elkin says that since the national mortgage lending debacle, "deposits have been flowing out of some institutions into others that didn't have the credit risks. That trend is now at the Main Street level. You didn't used to have to think about the financial condition of your financial institution, but that's the environment we're living in now."

She says U.S. Bank has stayed out of trouble during the economic downturn because it has what she calls "credit discipline" and will grant loans only to applicants with "adequate cash flow, modest leverage, and sufficient liquidity." She says if borrowers have those attributes, "then you're going to create a loan that's going to work well for the customer and well for the bank."

U.S. Bancorp announced net income of $766 million, or 45 cents a share, in the second quarter of 2010, compared with $471 million, or 12 cents a share in the year-earlier period. Its loan losses, in the second quarter totaled $1.1 billion, compared with $929 million in the year-earlier period.

Total average loans were $191 billion in the second quarter of this year, compared with $184 billion in the second quarter of 2009.

Elkin began her banking career in Seattle in 1993, after earning an MBA at Washington State University. At that time, U.S. Bank's chief credit officer in Seattle, a WSU alum, offered Elkin a credit analyst position after serving with her on a curriculum review committee. Elkin's husband already was working in Seattle, so she gladly accepted the position. After several years she became a business banking loan officer in a U.S. Bank Bellevue branch, but she and her husband, both Spokane natives, wanted to be close to their families, so in 1996 she transferred to a Spokane branch. She eventually became a commercial banking relationship manager, meaning she handled banking services for a number of commercial clients. In February 2009, Elkin was promoted to commercial team manager here, and in April 2010 she was named to succeed Robert Wigren, who was named region president of U.S. Bank in 2001 and retired in 2009.

U.S. Bank has 53 designated regions in 24 states, operates 3,066 branches, and has nearly 57,000 employees. Elkin is the sixth woman to be named president of one of the bank's regions.

Elkin says that U.S. Bank is the fifth largest bank in the nation, but has a community bank organizational structure that allows for local decision making. Here, it has a board of Spokane-area business leaders that advises the bank on its decisions about community investments and internal operations, she says.

"I can deploy resources within the bank to meet the custom needs of both our business clients and individual consumers, as well as targeted marketing and strategic planning that aligns with the region's strategic initiatives," Elkin says.

"Personally, I'm excited about the University District," she says. "The location is tremendous. I'm very supportive of what GSI (Greater Spokane Incorporated) is doing to advocate for a medical school. It will be transformational to our community if we can get it done. We really want to support that."

Elkin says the bank has been amenable to her plans to invest in advertising to raise awareness of local initiatives, stating, "That's something we haven't done in a long time." She is looking forward to a visit from U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis. "He is committed to coming out here, attending a board meeting and a client event, and making calls to engage with customers," she says.

Fifty percent of U.S. Bancorp's revenues come from its credit card and debit card division, but Elkin says that in the Spokane area, the bank is focused on the traditional business of making loans and taking deposits, along with earning non-interest income from certain kinds of investments.

Elkin, who participated last year in Leadership Spokane, a training program designed to prepare community members to take leadership roles in the greater Spokane area, now co-chairs the program committee for Leadership Spokane's Regional Economy Day. She says she loves talking personally with young people who will drive the future of Spokane.

Elkin sits on the board of Mobius Kids, and has served as president of the Mobius Spokane board, which oversees the children's museum and is spearheading a children's science center here. She served as president of the board of The Children's Museum of Spokane before it became Mobius.

Elkin is married, has two children, and has parents living in Spokane. To meet the demands of her position, she says she works seven days a week, often from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

"If you're going to be a community banker, that's what you do," she says. In her free time, she says, "I play a little soccer. In the over-30 league, I hold my own. In the over-40 league, I'm the bomb."

Elkin makes her love of team sports part of her leadership style at U.S. Bank.

To increase the bank's market share in Spokane, Elkin says she tells her team leaders, "We have to show up and earn our spot every day. That's our DNA for hustle. What opportunities are there? We have to out-hustle our past, set the bar much higher, and get over it."

At the regional level, she doesn't expect to see any impacts from the just-passed federal financial reforms being imposed on banks, but industry wide, she sees an added layer of administrative overhead needed to comply with coming new regulations.

"I think the new federal regulations are going to make it very tough for everybody. It will take a whole new layer of expense to comply with regulations," she says.

Last fall, the FDIC ordered banks to prepay deposit insurance premiums to offset the cost of covering failed banks. "That takes a certain amount of liquidity out of your balance sheet, which makes it harder to deliver service," she says.

Nevertheless, she says, "I see tremendous opportunity for us to be open for business—open to helping people write the next chapter in their financial story. There's no better feeling than helping somebody create wealth through their entrepreneurial ideas."