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Not Your Average Joe
Ciaburri says new commercial bank will provide 'personal touch'
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Business New Haven
2/21/2000
By: Michael C. Bingham
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Joe Ciaburra isn't ready to ride off into the sunset quite yet.
Far from it. Instead, the 70-year-old banker is getting back in the saddle after a five-year academic hiatus to form a new commercial bank, the Bank of New Haven County, which he hopes will be open for business next January.
Any similarities between the new bank's name and the name of the bank he founded 21 years ago - the Bank of New Haven - are strictly intentional. Indeed, Ciaburri appears to have the original BONH template in mind as he charts the future of what he hopes will become New Haven's "only home-based commercial community bank."
"Back-to-Basics Banking" is what Ciaburri envisions for the new bank, which he says will serve small to mid-sized businesses in the Havens as well as Hamden, Bethany, Orange, Branford, North Branford and Ciaburri's home town of Woodbridge.
Ciaburri noted that at the time of BONH's founding in 1979, there were 13 locally based banks in the New Haven area. Today only a handful remain, principally New Haven Savings Bank and tiny Prime Bank in Orange. "It's a big undertaking, but the time is right," he said.
Ciaburri said his team, represented by Louis Proto of Levey Miller Maretz & Proto, is presently exploring three former bank locations in downtown New Haven as potential bank headquarters.
According to Ciaburri, the Bank of New Haven County will earn its stripes the old-fashioned way - via personal contact with customers.
"Banking is personal," said Ciaburri. Of the electronic revolution in financial services, Ciaburri allows, "Yes, we'll do Internet banking. But when people need something - need a loan or a line of credit - they expect to see eyeballs."
Ciaburri said the new bank will offer "hard core and simple services." Among them will be "corporate, business and personal checking accounts, cash management services, money market, regular savings, regular and special certificates of deposit, drive-in teller, [ATM] machines" and other customary bank services.
To capitalize the new venture, Ciaburri has proposed to raise $10 million, twice the amount required by statute. To date, he said, directors of the bank and its holding company, to be known as Southern Connecticut Bancorp, have invested about $3.5 million in the startup.
Directors include former Starter Corp. president David Beckerman, local radio mogul and former Shore Line Times publisher Richard Lightfoot, New Haven attorney W. Martyn Philpot. Elmer Laydon of Elmer F. Laydon Construction Corp. and former Fire-Lite Alarms/NOTIFIER president Mary Levy and his wife, Janet.
Ciaburri will serve as chairman and CEO of the new bank, and said he is presently interviewing candidates for president and chief operating officer.
Under Ciaburri's leadership, the Bank of New Haven opened its doors in April 1979. In 1996 its assets were purchased by Citizens Bank of Providence, R.I. He later founded Amity Bank. In 1995, he became director of development for Southern Connecticut State University.
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