Pinnacle Bank celebrated the opening of its mortgage lending office on the Augusta side of Furys Ferry Road, last Tuesday, Feb. 18, representing the Elberton, Ga.-based bank’s deepening footprint in the CSRA.
The Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce joined Pinnacle Bank President David Voyles in welcoming the growing chain’s first Richmond County location, with Columbia County District 1 Commissioner Connie Melear, a member of the bank’s board of directors, among those in attendance.
“So we’re just going strong on our 91st year… and we’re going to continue to build and grow in this area,” Voyles said. “And part of doing that, you got to have homes, and you got to have mortgages, and you got to have people like [Senior Vice President of Mortgage Lending] John Mabery, who can put a team together and come over to this part of the state and meet those needs of customers.”
The new location, installed in a suite of office buildings tucked away along Parrish Road, just off Furys Ferry, arrived in the first week of October last year, its opening delayed by Hurricane Helene.
Augusta has been on Pinnacle’s radar for years, said area market manager Dustin Young, who joined Pinnacle in August of 2019 as its first Augusta-area employee, hired to lead its expansion efforts in the CSRA. He would go on to oversee the development of two bank branches opening in Columbia County, one in Martinez in February of 2022, followed by its Grovetown branch a year later.
Earlier versions of Pinnacle’s plans to develop in the area including hiring commercial bankers to operate out of a loan production office, said Young, to its balance sheet before expanding its line of businesses.
“But even in the first two years, we started hiring mortgage originators, and we were doing that on a one-off basis,” Young said. “We had gone through a couple of mortgage originators, very small teams, and had always discussed it would be very beneficial for us to recruit a very experienced team. They didn’t necessarily have to come from one place where we needed an experienced leader and other experienced loan originators.”
Over six months leading up to the launching the office last fall, Pinnacle Bank built a team of 16—10 loan officers and six support staff—many from other local banks, such as Queensborough.
“All these lenders have tremendous amount of experience, between 15 to 25 years each, and collectively, I think we just made a really good impression on what opportunities we can provide,” Young said.
Mabery notes that almost all of the mortgage office’s team was built through referrals by other hires.
“We just find good talent, and try to keep them,” Mabery said. “And normally, when you get good talent working for you, they refer good talent. That’s kind of how we built it over the years.”
Pinnacle Bank’s not done growing in the area, says Young. Another branch is planned at the former SunTrust building on 1602 Walton Way, which is currently being renovated, with a projected opening date in April.
Pinnacle Bank is also seeking to develop a branch in south Augusta, targeting a parcel on Peach Orchard Road, to open by the end of this year or the first quarter of next year. A larger, three-story branch in Evans from which several business lines would operate, is also in development for a parcel at the intersection of Ronald Reagan Drive and Evans Town Center Boulevard, next to the Meybohm building, currently expected to open in the last quarter of 2026.
“As we continue to grow as a bank, we realize that an Augusta market has a larger talent pool than a rural community of Elberton,” said Young. “And so we’re trying to create space so that we can hire for a lot of different not only customer-facing job roles, but also behind the scenes or support job roles.”
The Pinnacle Bank mortgage lending office is located at 229 Furys Ferry Road, Suite 131 in Augusta.
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
