Olaf Growald
Carl Cravens has witnessed plenty of growth as a fifth-generation resident of Arlington. As chief lending officer for the fast-growing Susser Bank, which changed its name from Affiliated Bank to reflect the namesake of its entrepreneur CEO Sam Susser, Cravens is in the middle of more growth.
The Dallas bank, whose operations base is in Arlington, opened the year with branches in Fort Worth, Arlington, Bedford, Garland, and Round Rock. It’s opened since then in Dallas and San Antonio and is opening this fall in Austin and Houston. Susser, who bought the bank in 2018, set a goal of being in all of Texas’ major markets within five years.
“We’re really two years ahead of where we thought we would be,” says Cravens, who came aboard the bank three years ago.
Cravens’ great-great-grandfather established Carlisle Military Academy, now the site of the University of Texas at Arlington. Cravens’ grandfather donated the land for the popular 86-acre Cravens Park, with baseball fields, tennis, volleyball, basketball courts, playgrounds, and hiking trails, in south Arlington.
Cravens’ father, Tom, is a retired longtime Arlington banker and businessman who worked his way from teller to CEO and chairman at First National Bank and has served as an officer at several local banking institutions.
Carl Cravens has spent 25 years in banking, with his career beginning in 1994, starting as a credit analyst. Growing up the son of a banker, Cravens says, “My stream of consciousness came in the S&L crisis. I do remember his friends. I thought, this doesn’t seem so fun.”
Today, he notes, “Banking’s a little more different. Much more regulated. Much more scrutinized. What the really good [bankers] do is make connections to people. That’s where they really add value.”
The bank’s history dates to 1959 when it opened as Affiliated Federal Credit Union. Today, Susser Bank has $1.3 billion in assets, including $500 million in Fort Worth. When Cravens joined, the bank had $650 million in assets.
The bank likes commercial real estate lending, including office, manufacturing, and industrial. “People we’ve banked a long time,” Cravens says. “Owner-occupied office, we like.”
The bank isn’t too worried about the pandemic and its impact on the office market, Cravens says. “I don’t think everybody’s going to go home and work. I think people need to be around work.”
Rents have been stable. But even if they were to soften, “I’d rather be here and worry about that problem than in another state,” he says.
The bank likes the strength of residential homebuilding. “That is going to continue with the influx of people moving into Texas and the short supply,” he says.
The bank also likes Class B multifamily properties. “People move into it when they do better, and move out of it when they do better, and move back when they do worse,” Cravens says.
Susser is putting together a team to focus on technology lending, looking for opportunities in software and software as a service. “The world’s changing. Technology is evolving.”
The bank is “very careful” on lending to the retail sector, Cravens says, and it’s avoided oil and gas. “Oil and gas is not something we’ve chosen to do. If we ever do go public, which I believe we will, the discount we get from any piece of the [oil and gas] world is too much.”
The bank today has 200 employees and is Arlington’s ninth-largest employer. It had 15 bankers at the beginning of the year and has hired another 15 since then. “That’ll round us out for the year,” Cravens says.