Matt Fink's Classification Talk

On October 9th, Matt Fink delivered his classification speech at our lunch gathering. Matt was raised in the Winston Park subdivision in Palatine (down the street from fellow Rotarian Ken Alger), and enjoyed a neighborhood full of kids, with their own make-shift baseball field in one of the neighbor’s yard, kick-the-can, and all of other classic games. Matt attended Lake Louise Elementary School and Winston Park Junior High. In eighth grade, Matt had designs on becoming a chemist, so he teamed with friend of the family who was a molecular biologist for a science project in which they cloned DNA in his parents’ oven. Unfortunately, the project produced a Petri dish of E-Coli, resulting in Matt gaining instantly popularity, but also making Matt ineligible for the state competition due to use of E-Coli. Matt also had aspirations of being a professional pitcher, but that dream was thwarted at age 16 when he had elbow surgery. Matt warned all of us to discourage any of our children or young players that we coach from throwing curveballs in their early teenage years.

Matt attended Palatine High School, where he participated in golf, wrestling, and track, and then graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in 1996. During college summer breaks, Matt worked as a bank teller at Harris Bank Palatine, where he met senior lender (and eventual Peoples Bank President) Frank Appleby. Matt’s considerable resume was enhanced further by his relevant experience working on a pig farm, which was appealing to Frank Appleby.

After padding his resume with his pig farm experience, Matt worked at Harris Bank Palatine as a Credit Analyst from 1996-1997, and then as a Commercial Lending Officer from 1998-1999, where he handled a small portfolio of business loans. In the fall of 1999, Matt left Harris Bank with Frank Appleby to help start the Peoples’ Bank of Arlington Heights. This experience allowed Matt to help build a business from the ground up, doing anything necessary to get the job done. Matt assured us that Peoples Bank is still well capitalized because it chose several years ago to not invest in mortgage-backed securities. Peoples Bank maintains more than twice the amount of capital required by federal regulations, and is still actively loaning money to qualified borrowers.

In 2000, Matt enrolled in the MBA Program at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management; where he fell under the tutelage of none other than our own Mark Tauber, his first instructor in Management Style and Individual Differences. Despite Mark’s influence, Matt successfully completed the program and received his MBA degree in 2003. At Peoples Bank, Matt continues to manage and build a loan portfolio (typical loan size is up to $2.5MM), in which he enjoys both the technical side (analyzing risk) and also sales side of the business. Matt recently moved to the new Peoples Bank location at 1104 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights. Matt has been married for 10 years to his wife Colleen (whom he met at the original Durty Nellie’s West Irish Pub in Palatine), and is blessed with 3 children. Colleen grew up in Arlington Heights, so Matt had no choice but to move here after they were married. Matt is currently on the board of the Arlington Heights Historical Society, and a member of the Downtown Business Committee of the Arlington Heights Chamber of Commerce.