Garry Barnes

After three decades in the financial industry, Garry Barnes has been celebrating a homecoming of sorts as he prepares the de novo Gateway Pacific Bank for a mid-year debut in National City. Barnes had two prior stints in the county, as a commercial lending executive for Valley Bank of Nevada in the early ’90s, and later in the decade as an executive with the San Diego office of Los Angeles-based Imperial Bank. Barnes spent the last few years as president of Holiday Bank & Trust in Salt Lake City; his career started as a teller and bookkeeper at a community bank in Boise, Idaho.

Barnes will be the first president of Gateway Pacific, which is expected to open with a stake of about $15 million. He says he got to know bank chairman and National City entrepreneur Alex Carolino, who first asked him to be a member of the board, then called him back and asked him to assume the reins of the new bank.

With commercial real estate the mainstay of San Diego community banks under pressure and the economy as a whole seeming on a downer, Barnes was asked, why here?

“I think the market opportunity is extremely strong,” he says. “There are a number of economic development projects under way in the South Bay, and the South County is one of the leading hot spots in the county. The potential for future growth is unparalleled.”

Barnes says the bank’s lending sweet spot will be commercial operating loans and industrial equipment financing, construction and commercial real estate loans. National City is already home to Neighborhood National Bank, which also specializes in community business development. “Their thrust is a little different from ours, but we’ll be competitors of theirs,” Barnes says.

Why now? “When I got here there were clouds on the horizon,” he says. “You see troubling information but it’s after the fact (of deciding to launch). On the other hand, we do have serious issues, but it doesn’t mean that a good, well-developed concept can’t be successful. There are always cycles, and if an organization waits until a perfect time, they’d never do anything. You have to deal with the issues, but if you have a good plan, and can execute it well, you have the ingredients for success.”

Barnes says he doesn’t know whether there are too many banks in San Diego, but adds, “I know there’s room for us.”

As befits a president of a de novo bank, he’s an optimist. “I don’t know when the fog will lift over the economy,” he says, “but the current difficulty receives more than its fair share of exposure, and by the time the media beats it into the ground, it’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve lived through these cycles before, and you can’t put your head in the sand, you’ve got to keep moving forward.”