E. Hunt Burke – Chairman and CEO, Burke & Herbert Bank

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E. Hunt Burke on being involved in the community, before community outreach programs became a thing ~

“A lot of banks today have these, I don’t know, community outreach programs and what not. We’ve always been deeply involved in helping build the community.”

A Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen, and this is Our Town. This is a special, warming day for me because our guest is a part of banking history in Our Town. Even though he’s Mr. Alexandria,

Alexandria is still Our Town. I tell everybody at Hunt Burke, that the Greater Washington Area is Our Town. It’s Vienna, Virginia. It’s Upper Marlboro, Maryland. It’s north, south, east and west. It’s about Our Town and his bank, Burke & Herbert. When you mention the name, it’s usually followed by, “Oh, that’s my favorite bank.” Or, “They really helped me out when I was starting in my business.” Or, “I remember that crazy bird, Runyon.” We always get a retort when we mention your bank.
It’s a legacy that began back in the 1800s, 1852 as I recall. The business of Burke & Herbert is … Hunt is a member of the fifth generation. His family operated Virginia’s oldest bank and oldest continuously operating bank. And I’m sure the oldest continually under one family, because the Herberts are out of it. But his father, Taylor, was a very dear friend of WMAL Radio, a Harden and Weaver favorite, and one of the longest-running advertisers on WMAL.
In 2016, Hunt Burke was named Alexandria Chamber of Commerce Business Leader of the Year. Welcome, E. Hunt Burke, Chairman and CEO of Burke & Herbert Bank.
E. Hunt Burke: Thank you, Andy.
A Ockershausen: That’s a long-winded introduction.
E. Hunt Burke: I’m delighted to be here. Thank you very much.

It’s a Family Affair, Always Has Been, With Staying Power

A Ockershausen: Your family is so important to us because the relationship as a listener is, to me, important because I knew yOur Town. I love the Old Town. I love Our Town, and I love Alexandria, but Burke & Herbert is such an institution, and it’s so worldwide. People who, like we were talking before, people move back into Our Town, Alexandria Military, they remember your bank immediately, from way back.
E. Hunt Burke: Somebody asked me recently why we hadn’t sold in all these generations, and I said, “We don’t know what else to do.”
A Ockershausen: You can’t live in a bank. But it is amazing how your bank has withstood. I’m sure there’ve been, over the years, many, many attempts to buy.
E. Hunt Burke: Sure.
A Ockershausen: It would just be a natural thing because it’s so well established that the big banks would want to get in, but they never really made any indentation on you.
E. Hunt Burke: No. We’re still having fun and as long as working at a bank is fun then, once the regulators ruin it, then we’ll probably be ready to bail out.
A Ockershausen: Well, Hunt, and you also, because of your continuity, have established so much of an imprint in Old Town and Alexandria, and now, of course, you’re all over Northern Virginia. But, the banks have just disappeared in my lifetime and in your lifetime, too. There’s no more Riggs. There’s no more DC National. It’s a funny thing, but Our Town has become very small in the banking business.
E. Hunt Burke: It is funny, because sometime in the ’80s, there was a bank on every corner and then they all went away. They got merged and couldn’t compete with the community banks or … I don’t know what the impetus was, but now, corporate headquarters in North Carolina and New York and all around have looked at Alexandria and said, “Wow. This is prime real estate.” So, there’s a bank back on every corner again and …
A Ockershausen: With another name, of course.
E. Hunt Burke: With another name. So-
A Ockershausen: Yeah. The Winston-Salem, I mean, Atlanta the headquarters way out of Our Town but not in Burke & Herbert, it’s still at Fairfax and King Street, is that correct?
E. Hunt Burke: Yes sir.
A Ockershausen: Oh I love that. The view of the Monument, and the names and the characters. Since 1852 you’ve survived a Civil War, a traumatic experience, certainly for the whole country, but particularly for Northern Virginia because you were caught in the middle between the Union and the Confederate, with your bank.
E. Hunt Burke: Right. And we were just bankers. We tried to stay out of it for the most part.
A Ockershausen: Yeah, but the feds wouldn’t let you stay out of it. Huh?
E. Hunt Burke: No.

The “Silver Vault” and Mary Custis Lee’s Two Trunks

A Ockershausen: And when the federals took over the city, they ran it. Now, your family established a vault, of historic items, and that vault is still under your control.
E. Hunt Burke: It is. In the basement we had something we called the “silver vault”. So when you were having a party you’d come in and take out your silver and take it home and …
A Ockershausen: Entertain?
E. Hunt Burke: Right. So interestingly, a few years ago a classmate of mine from high school, Robert E. Lee deButts, hope I’m allowed to say Robert E. Lee still on the radio.
A Ockershausen: You never know any more.
E. Hunt Burke: Right. And anyway, he called me and said that his grandmother, who was Robert E. Lee’s granddaughter, had told him long ago that there was some trunks that Robert E. Lee’s oldest daughter, Mary Custis Lee, may have left in the attic of Burke & Herbert Bank and could I tell him what happened to them so he could track them down. I said, “Well, we don’t have an attic, for one thing.” But we looked down in the silver vault and we had an inventory of all the belongings down there. There was, at the very bottom of the inventory, just said two trunks. And so, didn’t know what that was so I went down and looked at them and one had a big stamp on the side that said, “M. Lee.”
A Ockershausen: Ah hah.
E. Hunt Burke: Yeah, I was pretty excited. So, I called Rob and told him, he lives in New York, and came down the following weekend. The whole week I was, you know, sugar plums dancing in my head, thinking about what might be in those trunks. Swords or china.
A Ockershausen: Mystery trunks.
E. Hunt Burke: Yeah, exactly. So, when we opened them on the following Saturday morning, it was just papers. And I thought, “Oh, how disappointing.” Well it turns out there were 6,000 documents from the Lee/Custis family-
A Ockershausen: Wow.
E. Hunt Burke: Dating all the way back to 1694 through 1900, so it wasn’t just the Lee family. It was a slice of American history. Just fascinating stuff in there.
A Ockershausen: Oh my God. Did they publish it or have they ever been published by the deButts family? Or-
E. Hunt Burke: Interestingly, there was a lady named Elizabeth Pryor Brown (sic) [Elizabeth Brown Pryor], who was writing a book at the time and it was about Robert E. Lee through his own letters. So here was this trove of-
A Ockershausen: Oh my … fabulous.
E. Hunt Burke: Letters that she hadn’t seen and she had seen a number of collections. So she was able to incorporate that in the book and a lot of people didn’t like it, because it showed a very human side of Robert E. Lee. He was passionate, he was lusty, he was a tough leader. All the things that sort of-
A Ockershausen: He was a normal human being.
E. Hunt Burke: Yeah, exactly. Nobody wants to hear that. He was this Virginia gentleman-
A Ockershausen: Right.
E. Hunt Burke: And painted by the historians. At any rate, that was fascinating. There were his stars he cut off his uniform after Appomattox.
A Ockershausen: Right.
E. Hunt Burke: There was a letter from Stonewall Jackson that just makes me cry when I try to tell the story so I’m not gonna tell quite what’s in the letter. Some memoirs that he had written and he never did write an autobiography so this was all really good stuff.
A Ockershausen: The fact was that he was a soldier because he’s a West Pointer, but that was his life, and he served America in the Mexican War or the war that we had in the south. He was in the United States Army when he resigned that commission to stay with his state. He stayed with Virginia.
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: He was a statesman, and as we know, when he retired he became an educator and president. It was just Washington College then, right?
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: Did you go to college in northern Virginia?
E. Hunt Burke: I went to George Mason for a couple of years. Originally, to the University of Richmond.

E. Hunt Burke – An Early Start in the Banking Business

A Ockershausen: Right. And you grew up, of course you’re in Alexandria, you went to grammar school in the city, and … How did you work at the bank when you were 13 years old? With child labor laws?
E. Hunt Burke: Exactly. Well my father said, “You’re not going to be hanging around the pool with a bunch of derelicts all summer so get in the car and come to work with me.” And it’s funny, because if I’m walking down the two blocks of King Street to Landini’s and back to the bank, I’ll say hi to ten people and somebody was with me one day and said, “Gosh, do you know everybody in town?” And I said, “Well, I’ve been working here since I was 13, if I didn’t know somebody there’d be something wrong with that.
A Ockershausen: You are way ahead of Landini because they probably only opened 40 years ago. You’ve been around longer than that, of course. But that was, at one time Burke & Herbert was in one place that I remember. I don’t know where your branches were but I knew the one in Old Town.
E. Hunt Burke: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
A Ockershausen: You didn’t have many branches for many years, correct?
E. Hunt Burke: Correct.
A Ockershausen: Your great-grandfather and the family said, “We can do our business in this location and we take care of our friends.” And so forth, in Old Town. That also is unique in today’s world.
E. Hunt Burke: Yeah. We didn’t open our first branch for the first 100 years. My grandfather didn’t believe in branches, so my father opened the first branch and ran it. He was the branch manager back in the ’50s.
A Ockershausen: Then he brought you in to work with him at the main branch and so forth.
E. Hunt Burke: Yes sir.
A Ockershausen: Tell us about the family that got involved in so much of the city and the city government. Because I remember the mayors and all the things that when Old Town was a great place to live. And I’m sure it’s even greater now. But when Frank Mann was Mayor, Alexandria became an All -American City. I’ll never forget that. And Burke & Herbert made that possible. I’m convinced of that.

On Being Part of the Alexandria, VA Community

E. Hunt Burke: Well it’s really great to walk around town and be able to see businesses that we helped get started and buildings that we helped get built. And homes that we’ve helped generations of people purchase. There was an attorney who told me that I helped him with a mortgage on his house and he did the title search all the way back to the first time that property was sub-divided and sold and he said Burke & Herbert Bank had the loan on it. Every single owner in the history of the property, which was just amazing.
A Ockershausen: That’s phenomenal. Well you took care of your customers.
E. Hunt Burke: Absolutely.
A Ockershausen: That’s why you were so successful.
E. Hunt Burke: Still do.
A Ockershausen: Well this is Andy Ockershausen, this is Old Town. I’m talking to E. Hunt Burke in Alexandria.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town.

On Listening To, and Participating In, WMAL

A Ockershausen: This is Our Town, this is Andy Ockershausen, and I’m more than chatting, I’m interviewing a fabulous man in E. Hunt Burke, the last remaining member today of the Burke family, the CEO. We’re talking about Our Town and the involvement of our community of Washington with Burke & Herbert Bank through our Harden and Weaver. That your father was a great fan and they used each other, they had a great relationship.
E. Hunt Burke: Well it was fun because growing up, Harden and Weaver, WMAL was THE radio station. I don’t think we invented FM yet.
A Ockershausen: No, that’s correct.
E. Hunt Burke: And those shock jocks, so that’s what we listened to in the morning. And it was a very family-oriented, humorous … I don’t know how many characters those guys played the parts of but it was a sketch,-
A Ockershausen: Oh, my.
E. Hunt Burke: Just getting ready for school in the morning, and listen, having my bowl of cereal and listen to Harden and Weaver, so it was a delight to become associated with WMAL and I know my dad and Harden and Weaver, and yourself, had a great time meeting for lunches and it led to some really creative commercials that-
A Ockershausen: Well, the various things we did in Alexandria, were are all connected with something I consider very patriotic. It was either parades or George Washington’s birthday celebration. Because of Old Town, so being involved with Burke & Herbert Bank was being involved with what WMAL was, Our Town. Old Town, whatever.

At Burke & Herbert Bank It Has Always Been About the Community

E. Hunt Burke: A lot of banks today have these, I don’t know, community outreach programs and what not. We’ve always been deeply involved in helping build the community.
A Ockershausen: Absolutely. Well I remember the great story about your, I’m sure it was your grandfather, too, and they had the desk right in the lobby of the bank. People would come through the door, knew him.
E. Hunt Burke: That’s right.

Taylor Burke

A Ockershausen: They knew they could make a loan. That was the atmosphere, was so family oriented. I don’t know who told, maybe Marty Gannon, an erstwhile attorney, my erstwhile attorney, he moved out of town, an Old Town guy, but Marty Gannon told me that Taylor Burke would make a loan based on what he felt. The paperwork might be one thing but when he eyeballed a prospect, he had an opinion. And he usually was right.
E. Hunt Burke: Well, he was right. And it wasn’t just opinion. Once he got to meet the person and know what they did and where the house was, there was a tremendous … that substituted for a credit application and an appraisal, he could make it pretty much spur of the moment. People today tell me they walked into his office didn’t fill out a single piece of paper and off they went with the mortgage or a loan for a business or a car.
A Ockershausen: The bank was part of the fabric of society. I think Janice was relating a friend of ours, whose become a friend now builder, John Nugent, started building down in the Del Ray area as I remember and he needed money and he credits Taylor Burke with getting his life together and getting him started. And that story, I hear it all the time, from builders. About what Burke & Herbert has done to get people started.
E. Hunt Burke: As do I. I don’t think Mr. Burke and Mr. Herbert originally had any idea of what Old Town would become. When I was a kid, it wasn’t somewhere you would take a date at night. It was kind of scary down there. It was the guys all working on the wharves or whatever, a lot of warehouses and pool halls and beer joints, but we were very fortunate to be right in the center, the epicenter, of what became the marvelous town that is.
A Ockershausen: Oh yeah. I remember vividly when Frank Mann was Mayor, Alexandria became an All-American City. There’s only three cities in the United States, Alexandria was one of them. And that was quite an honor. Everybody felt very proud of Our Town. And Old Town, at that time.
E. Hunt Burke: Absolutely. And we are lucky to be a part of it.
A Ockershausen: There was a time, right down along the river, there used to be some kind of a rendering plant, or something, as I remember, fertilizer plant, that was financed by Burke & Herbert Bank, that had to be 50 years ago, 60 years ago, I guess.
E. Hunt Burke: One year the circus was in town, Ringling Brothers was out at Bailey’s Crossroads and an elephant died. They took it down to the rendering plant and the town smelled horrible for weeks after that, but-
A Ockershausen: It doesn’t now. Everything along the river now is blossoming. Expensive condos and parks, it’s beautiful in Old Town Alexandria. Now tell me about Herbert. There was a Burke and Herbert. But Herbert’s name still remained even though the Herberts were not connected, is that correct?

How Things Got Started – Mr. Herbert and Mr. Burke

E. Hunt Burke: That’s correct. Mr. Herbert and Mr. Burke were in their 20s when they got together and decided to start a bank. They shook hands, no paperwork, they became partners, and down in Alexandria, about a block from the river, they started to sell real estate or you could buy bonds for the C&O Canal, they exchanged foreign currency since it was a big seaport town, and they found a way to make a living. They even sold stock in the Bank of the Old Dominion, which was the big bank across the street. They were very proud of themselves to sort of-
A Ockershausen: To help the big banks.

Colonel Herbert

E. Hunt Burke: Fly under the radar. Exactly. The two of them became fixtures in Old Town and Colonel Herbert had about five daughters and it wasn’t fashionable back then for daughters to go into banking so they’re still Herbert descendants in town but their names are-
A Ockershausen: Stayed in Our Town, Old Town, huh?
E. Hunt Burke: They sure did.
A Ockershausen: Where did the Colonel come from? Was he a military man?
E. Hunt Burke: He marched off as an infantryman as far as I know, when the Civil War broke out, he was in the Virginia 17th Infantry and rose up to the rank of Colonel.
A Ockershausen: Did he come back to the bank after the war?
E. Hunt Burke: He sure did.

Banking and The Civil War

A Ockershausen: The bank had some sort of problem with the federal government, as I recall reading something in the notes about Burke & Herbert. That the feds were very oppressive of your bank at the time.
E. Hunt Burke: When the Union-
A Ockershausen: Union.
E. Hunt Burke: Occupied Alexandria they wanted everybody to sign an Oath of Allegiance and apparently, oral history has it that Mr. Burke refused to sign and he was very proud that he was arrested and jailed in Washington, DC for a period of time. But he was also instrumental in things like talking the Union soldiers out of putting Alexandrians on trains and taking them, dropping them off somewhere in the south. Which, apparently, was a way to scare people into signing the Oath.
A Ockershausen: The petition, right?
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: That was because he was aligned with the state. He was a Virginian like Robert E. Lee was. His state was important to him at the time.
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: And that’s why he resigned the commission, he didn’t desert the Union Army, he resigned his commission in the Army.
E. Hunt Burke: Mr. Burke wasn’t actually in the Army.
A Ockershausen: He was not?
E. Hunt Burke: No.
A Ockershausen: Okay.
E. Hunt Burke: He was a banker.
A Ockershausen: Right.
E. Hunt Burke: We’ve always tried to stay out of politics, regardless of our personal beliefs, because whichever side we side with, half our customers are gonna close their accounts and leave, so-
A Ockershausen: You’re gonna make somebody mad.
E. Hunt Burke: We try to keep a low profile.
A Ockershausen: But the political process in Alexandria was important though, in the growth of the city, the liberal laws and so forth. To watch the building, has been to me, such happening in Washington now, too, but in Alexandria, it happened, I guess, 40, 50 years ago, started to explode out west. Out near St. Stephens, and Seminary Road and so forth, the building. And Burke & Herbert was a big part of that, because they were lending money to builders.

One Banker’s Pride

E. Hunt Burke: Sure. Take a great deal of pride of seeing the things that we’ve helped build over the years and the businesses that we’ve helped start.
A Ockershausen: Yeah. Your list of accomplishments, Hunt, are incredible. Your awards and like most things, part of it is your personal ability, but part of it is your association with the bank. Such as the Alexandria Hospital Foundation Board, the new hospital. You’re on the board of Five Guys, you were, are you still on the board?
E. Hunt Burke: I was.
A Ockershausen: That is an American success story to me. Unbelievable, because I knew all those guys when they were just getting started. And Mark Moseley, who was a football player, worked with them, and I used to bug him and say, “Mark, you’ve got a great product. Why don’t you advertise? We need you. We want you.” He said, “We don’t need advertising. We don’t advertise.” I said you can’t tell me, he said me, “No, no. Word of mouth of Five Guys has made this company.” He maybe had 10 stores then. Go way back. What has he got now, 1,500?
E. Hunt Burke: Yeah, they’re all over the world. Saudi Arabia, anywhere.
A Ockershausen: It’s incredible. And the product is still excellent. And they still don’t advertise it. The Alexandria Chapter of the American Red Cross, Alexandria Business Cares Foundation, Friends of Carlyle House, I remember Carlyle House was in Old Town, was it not?
E. Hunt Burke: Still is.
A Ockershausen: And it’s on a side street, as I recall, it’s not on King Street.
E. Hunt Burke: Right. It’s on north Fairfax and it’s a gem in the Northern Virginia Regional Park authorities-
A Ockershausen: Carlyle is a wonderful, wonderful institution. Friends of Carlyle, Alexandria neighborhood kids at risk, you do a lot of work with kids. As I say to people, “Did you know kids some day will be adults and have money? Be nice to the kids and they’ll be nice to you.”
Do you have family members that will continue the family, what is about Hunt Burke, do you have a family that’s going to continue?

On the Future of Burke & Herbert Bank

E. Hunt Burke: I do. I have four daughters.
A Ockershausen: Uh oh. Son-in-laws coming.
E. Hunt Burke: They all want to be realtors and go into different fields. But I keep telling them, “We’ve got a building here with your name on it, all you gotta do is step up.” I also have a couple of nephews that are very interested.
A Ockershausen: Well the Herbert family was all girls, too, was it not?
E. Hunt Burke: It was. Hopefully things are different now. We actually have girls that are in high positions in the bank, and I use the word “girls” facetiously.
A Ockershausen: We’re not supposed to say “girls” anymore. It’s women or females, you know?
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: I still say, to me, there’s girl’s basketball, it’s not lady’s basketball, it’s girl’s basketball. Men’s ball. Being on all these boards has been a valuable thing for the bank, is that correct? I tell people all the time the way to grow your business is get involved in the charity work. It’s so helpful to business.
E. Hunt Burke: People always think if you’re a banker, that you can be the finance guy on their board of directors and I’m terrible at budgets and things like that.
A Ockershausen: That’s not your forte.
E. Hunt Burke: Don’t tell anybody.
A Ockershausen: Well, I hate to continue with this line, but it’s so true, being involved as I was all these years with what we tried to do for the community, all of our talent, and that goes for the builders to the lawyers, we got them involved in some charitable aspect of their life away from the broadcast company. Like Harden and Weaver with Children’s Hospital. Trumbull and Core were So Others May Eat. Felix Grant was involved wth the imusic’s association. The name you’ll remember, was so involved in the community more than just working, they became in the community and it paid great dividends for our company.

Getting Involved In Community

E. Hunt Burke: Sure. And that’s part of being a community organization, community bank. Not only our senior management but also people throughout the ranks of the bank are involved in local charities, non-profits, churches, etc. It’s a great way to get yourself out in the community.
A Ockershausen: It pays great dividends. I’m saying that all the time. Well anyway, I’m going to take a break here now and take in a deep breath, but Hunt Burke, it’s been great having you here and I appreciate it so much. This is Andy Ockershausen and Our Town, I’ll be right back.
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Radio announcer: You’re listening to Our Town, with Andy Ockershausen. Brought to you by Best Bark Communications.
A Ockershausen: This is Our Town, it’s Andy Ockershausen and we’re speaking to the gentleman banker, the man of the year to me, and the man of the century his family has been, is Hunt Burke. And we’re talking about the future, Hunt. Which you and I will see part of, but we’re not gonna see it all. But what’s happening in the banking world is stunning to me, because I see it as a customer. And I know you see it as a CEO.

Bank Tellers and Customer Service

E. Hunt Burke: Sure. I guess the pace, as with everything in the world today, the pace of change is faster and faster every day and we are doing our best to keep up. We want to keep that traditional touch with our customers but also for the new generation-
A Ockershausen: You’ve got to recognize the future.
E. Hunt Burke: So we have to have online banking and mobile banking and all the whistles and bells, actually not all the whistles and bells, but the basic services that people need in their ways they bank these days.
A Ockershausen: And you still have tellers. I used to be, don’t ask me why Hunt, but I was on the bank board. I used to have arguments with the management of the bank about tellers and the fact that the teller, to me, was the most important person in the bank. More important than the president, or the CEO, or anything, is the person I dealt with through the cage. That’s when they had cages.
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: Now of course they’ve got arm-, I mean plastic or whatever, and I said, “Our most important person, you pay them less money.” They said well we’ve gotta because we have a huge turnover. I said well maybe you have the turnover because you don’t pay them enough money. It was a continual thing. The tellers, I believe, were very important to banking.
E. Hunt Burke: They’re vital. And it’s very much like nurses or teachers. The people that are on the ground doing the actual work are the ones that get paid the least and it’s unfortunate. But, that’s-
A Ockershausen: Yeah, but that’s what the public is relating to, you see the nurse.
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: You know, you might not know who owns the bank or, I mean, who owns the hospital but the nurse is your contact, or your doctor. Same thing with the bank. That teller is sort of like important to everybody, I thought.
E. Hunt Burke: Right. Unfortunately, nobody wants to be a teller for life.
A Ockershausen: No.
E. Hunt Burke: So that’s part of the reason for the turnover. But we’ve got some very good folks and we have an exceptional record in terms of people not turning over and, I tell every new class of tellers that come in that we hire from within, that they have those opportunities. I started as a teller all they have to be is 40 years in . . .
A Ockershausen: You’re learning the banking business here, right?
E. Hunt Burke: That’s right.
A Ockershausen: At your father and grandfather’s lap.
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: To teach you how to do it. Do some work, right? You swept the floors.
E. Hunt Burke: Really, anything that needed to be done, you’re joking but I actually-
A Ockershausen: Oh no. I’m not joking, I know that’s for a fact.
Janice iacona Ockerhausen: He did it, too.
E. Hunt Burke: On rainy days when the lobby floor would get wet, I’d go in the janitor’s closet and get a mop out and, you know, clean up the snow or rain or whatever.
A Ockershausen: Those were the days, I remember we had Coke machines and I used to change the Coke machines, and put in bottles.
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: Remember the bottled Coke?
E. Hunt Burke: Absolutely.
A Ockershausen: You never see that much anymore. But being involved in the broadcast company and being involved with doing things with people showed me that there was a great, great gap in the broadcast business of taking care of people that would pay great dividends to the bank, I mean to WMAL. And then being involved with your bank was very important to us because it was people, it was Our Town, it was Old Town. And I’m so glad for you, Hunt, and your family, and I hope they continue that kindred tradition. Maybe you’ll get a good son-in-law out of this, huh?
E. Hunt Burke: I hope so.
A Ockershausen: You’ve got four, you’ve got good odds.
E. Hunt Burke: Sure.
A Ockershausen: Somebody to come with the bank. Empowering your tellers and growing them, I think is a wonderful idea. Growing employees out of your own bank. Out of your own business.

Promoting From Within and Family

E. Hunt Burke: That’s very rewarding and they don’t have to be acclimatized when they come on board, because they, like me, they sort of grow up in the bank.
A Ockershausen: Well that was true of Five Guys, too. They brought their own people up. It’s a family business almost. The same people that started the business are still there.
E. Hunt Burke: One of the youngest of the boys, of five boys, started out when they had him working the soda machine and he wasn’t tall enough to even see the top of the cup but he could see the level in the cup through the paper cup and so he’d stand there and fill people’s sodas.
A Ockershausen: But I think that’s the reason they were successful because the guys that did the work were right there in the business when they started. It’s a great American success story. As is Burke & Herbert Bank, 1852. Well, what is your plan? You gotta another 50 years in the bank, of course.
E. Hunt Burke: People ask that a lot. I don’t know what my plan is. I still enjoy going to work, I’m still capable, and people don’t listen to me anymore but it’s a lot of fun.
A Ockershausen: But you still enjoy meeting your clients, and people have been banking with you for years, that’s probably a great pleasure for you and your family.
E. Hunt Burke: I think part of the charm of the bank is having a Mr. Burke there and somebody they can call and, the customers can call and yell at, I try to appease them and say I’m sorry for whatever we did. But 9 out of 10 people that call are calling to tell me they were floored by the service of one employee or another. I think that’s unusual for-
A Ockershausen: That really is unusual. That’s quite unusual. But knowing you’re there knows that the customer knows that you’re there and somebody is watching their assets. That’s what it’s all about, right?
E. Hunt Burke: Right.
A Ockershausen: So Burke & Herbert have done that fairly well. I just can’t say enough, growing up part of my life in Alexandria, I love the bank and met all the people that are part of it. But Hunt, thank you for being with us today.
E. Hunt Burke: Sure.
A Ockershausen: It’s been delightful and I hope your bank goes another 1852, how about another 200 years.
E. Hunt Burke: Sounds good to me.
A Ockershausen: We won’t be around but the bank might be. Hunt Burke, thank you. And thanks to Alexandria and thanks to Old Town. This is Our Town with Hunt Burke and Andy Ockershausen.
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