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PrintTulsaPeople Q&A - Don Walker
President and CEO, Arvest Bank Tulsa; 2010 chairman, Tulsa Metro Chamber
As president and CEO of Arvest Bank Tulsa, Don Walker does not spend his workday in a top-floor office separated from his employees.
Rather, he can be found on the ground floor of the downtown Arvest headquarters, sitting in a glassed-in office viewable to anyone who walks by. And this is not limited to Arvest employees and visitors. Walker’s office is also in sight of those walking the streets of downtown. Which is exactly the way he likes it.
The 2010 chairman of the Tulsa Metro Chamber says he enjoys interacting with people, whether employees, bank patrons or downtown businesspeople and visitors. He is driven by transparency and appreciates the opportunity to address concerns and questions about the future of Tulsa.
Walker, a graduate of the University of Arkansas, began his career at Arvest as a loan officer in 1978. He served as president and CEO of First National in Siloam Springs, Ark., until 1991, when he was appointed president and CEO of the Bank of Bentonville, Ark. He remained president until moving to Tulsa in 1998.
In addition to his chamber involvement, Walker also serves on the boards of directors for Morning Side Charitable Foundation, Boy Scouts of America Indian Nations Council, the River Parks Authority, Tulsa’s Young Professionals and the United Way, among others.
Here, Walker, who was inaugurated in January, shares his vision for the chamber — and Tulsa — in 2010 and beyond.
How have you liked your chairmanship so far? How has it been for you?
I love it. However, it is time-consuming beyond my expectation. It’s a great way to connect with all of the great businesses and community leaders in Tulsa. I love it. I guess I’m a gregarious guy and being in an organization whose focus is leadership and the creation of a better business environment, that suits me to a T.
How long have you been involved with the Chamber?
I have been on the board for eight years. I have been in chamber organizations in previous communities that I’ve worked in and always found them to be important elements of the community. It has intentions that align with my beliefs because unless a region is growing, there are very few opportunities for its citizens. And the chamber is a business organization. I believe business organizations create the jobs that provide income opportunities for its citizens and the sales tax that’s needed by the cities. That’s what chambers do, and they do it very well. We want to grow the business climate and business opportunities to create jobs. At the inauguration, I mentioned Back to Basics. That’s my belief is that jobs have to be created. That’s the element for really everything that happens. That creates home ownership, that creates taxes to run our cities and counties, it provides the contributions to our churches. When you think how far the jobs and the necessary revenue go, that is the primary driver for our region’s success.
In the challenging economic climate, is job creation even more important? And is it going to be more challenging?
The most important thing is the retention of our existing companies. What can we do to help them be successful and expand their business? Because if you think about it, we have a good core of businesses today. Most of our people – 93 percent of our people are employed; basically I’m saying we have 7 percent unemployment … — so if 93 percent of our people are employed, let’s make sure that those companies have everything they need to continue to do business and provide jobs. Just today when you hear the announcement of Gatorade closing their plant, 108 jobs here in northeast Oklahoma that disappeared, we don’t want that to happen. And then the second opportunity, the second need, is to grow and create more jobs – bring companies from outside the region that recognize the Tulsa region as a great place to live and develop their particular business or enterprise.
Yes, it’s tougher today. All communities around the country are begging for companies to come to their community; some communities are in much more difficult circumstances than the Tulsa region, so they’re trying even harder; they’re paying incentives for the companies to move. Think about Detroit and how they’re trying to rebuild a community that has lost so many jobs. Our responsibility and our opportunity is to find ways to encourage or incentivize companies to come to Tulsa. … And the (Tulsa Metro) Chamber has an economic development arm. Out of our membership dues and out of our sponsorships, we try to build both personnel and the resources to be able to go find that company that’s a good fit for northeast Oklahoma. We have a great economic development division inside the Tulsa Metro Chamber, and we work with all the cities in the region to find what their needs are, find what the needs are of companies around the world and try to bring them to the Tulsa area.
What types of companies are being sought? What is the future of business development here?
In my opinion, and in the ideal scenario, we would be looking for companies that are willing to move their headquarters to downtown Tulsa, for example. We have a tremendous amount of gorgeous office space throughout downtown Tulsa. This would be a great place for technology companies to move into these spaces. We love the medical industry, whether that’s research and development, whether it is companies that are manufacturing medical equipment or supplies – those are very stable types of businesses that would be a great fit for the Tulsa metro area. We’ve also looked at energy. Tulsa was the ... oil capital of the world, and as Oklahoma continues to look at alternative energy sources, I think that Tulsa should be right in the middle of that growth. Obviously natural gas is a real opportunity for Tulsa, the expansion of the natural gas industry, so if there are other companies out there, I’d love to see them relocate to Tulsa. We have some great companies today, but that’s something you see happen around the globe. Just as the oil industry migrated to Houston because of the availability of certain aspects of that industry that were helpful, that were important, I see no reason that Tulsa couldn’t be a natural gas center for the U.S. That would include not only the companies but research, the compressed natural gas opportunities of alternative fuel. If there’s a company up in Kansas or in Chicago or in North Dakota, let’s encourage them to headquarter in Tulsa.
… (We want to bring) companies that complement what’s here. In that case, I would mention aerospace, still one of the best industries in the region, and we continue to look for opportunities to bring other aerospace companies and manufactures and designers to Tulsa.
... I think a good point is, we will take any successful industry and bring it to Tulsa if they’re looking for a home. We think we have a lot to offer. Again, we are seeing a flight from the West Coast. People are looking more at middle America because of the cost of living, the quality of life, safety, and so we are spending a lot of time in California looking for companies that might like to relocate to Oklahoma.
It sounds like we’re taking advantage of the fact that while we were affected by the economic challenges, we were in a bubble, too, and didn’t get hit quite as hard. Does that provide a unique opportunity for us to attract these companies from the coasts?
… The fact that the recession has hit the northeast and the West Coat and the southeast very hard, and Oklahoma has not suffered to the same extent, it makes Oklahoma, particularly northeast Oklahoma, a great place to consider for relocation. But we’re seeing the same with workers, not just companies. We are seeing people moving to Oklahoma looking for jobs. They find this region attractive because of its beauty, its natural resources, our very reasonable cost of living, the safety factors – it’s a safe place, a good place to raise a family.
During your inaugural address, you mentioned some of the big focus points for the chamber this year. Two of them were crime and schools and how it’s important to improve those to attract businesses. Why are those two issues important to you, and what are your plans for improving them?
Let’s start with education because if I could say there’s one element more important than any other, it’s the educational system in our region. Employers that want to relocate look at the workforce. They look at the cost of the workforce, what’s the hourly wage and what kind of employee am I going to be looking for. As a region, if we continue to raise the quality of our education and the quality of our high school graduates, the success of our high school graduates, and look at the successful graduates from our universities, that will send a signal to these companies that (they) will find a great human resource in the Tulsa region. We have to improve several things: One, we need to increase the graduation rate from high school. We need to encourage our eighth graders as they move into high school to take more rigorous courses that will make them more prepared to go to secondary school, whether that’s an associate’s degree at Tulsa Community College or on to one of our universities. They’ll be much more likely to succeed in college.
Every student should not go to college. And our chamber knows that. We’re not asking every student to go to college. We’re asking every student to get the best high school education they can get and then decide what’s best for them. Do they need to be in a technical school, do they need to be in some sort of specialized industry? But whatever they do, they need to be prepared to be the best they can be.
Our chamber is very focused on helping all of our schools in the region become better learning institutions. We want Tulsa Public Schools to be a model for public schools around the country. We have a ways to go, but I believe that our teachers and our administration want to see how good Tulsa Public Schools can be, and our chamber really focuses on helping them accomplish that. We have almost 2,000 Partners in Education. Our chamber has encouraged businesses and civic groups to be involved with their schools.
... There are other educational focuses. We work closely with the university systems here because we believe that if our students can complete their degree here locally, it’s better for everyone. It’s less expensive because they’re able to stay in their community and get their degree. It’s also good for the community to have those educators here ... and in our business environment.
The other (issue) you mentioned was crime. The city’s perspective today, the City of Tulsa, because of the difficult financial position that it’s in to have to consider reducing our security, our chamber is very supportive of the mayor to do what is best for Tulsa. Because we do know that our businesses and our citizens and our potential companies that would move to northeast Oklahoma are all concerned about safety. I believe Tulsa is a very, very safe place, but we do know from what we see around the country that it is important that people have a safe place to live and work, and we will always be supportive of the cities that we live in and we represent to accomplish that.
One thing I would like to see in the region is more cooperation with our multiple police forces, partnerships between our cities and the county that all security — police and fire — that we work closely together to see how we can be more efficient, eliminate some duplication of coverage and yet provide a very safe climate for all of our citizens. ... There is a lot of overlap, a lot of duplication, and I think we could be more efficient and effective if our county and cities all worked together on a plan for police and fire protection.
If I could jump to another part that I have focused on — it is my passion, if you would — is to bring our communities together. There has been out of necessity a battle for retail dollars the last several years because our cities are so dependent on sales tax for their revenue. I don’t blame anyone for trying to move retail establishments closer to their residence. That’s their privilege; in fact, that’s the leader’s job. So as a region we know that is a natural occurrence. Owasso needs to provide services for their people; therefore, the services need to be in Owasso. Bixby, Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Sapulpa — they need those retail dollars in their communities to serve their people as well. And as Tulsans, we have to recognize that and accept that.
... When people come to northeast Oklahoma, or when they fly into Tulsa generally on a commercial airline … they may go visit a business in Owasso, but they’re thinking of Tulsa as their point of destination, at least for that business trip. If the heart of Tulsa is still downtown — every city manager … they’ve all told me that they agree downtown Tulsa needs to be revitalized. It needs more energy; it needs to be more vibrant. We’re making a lot of progress to create a destination in the Tulsa region and an entertainment district in downtown Tulsa. I truly believe that in five years we’re going to look back at 2008-2010 as the turning point for the Tulsa region, and it’s because we recreated a great downtown entertainment venue.
... We haven’t talked about the river. That is the next leg of the stool, if you would. I believe that the Arkansas River holds more development opportunities for the region than any other single asset. As you travel around this United States and you go to communities that have taken advantage of their waterways, whatever they are, you will find that the private sector follows with their personal investments. They want to participate in that development, and once you get that development along the river, from Sand Springs to Broken Arrow, you will add another incredible opportunity for people to come and enjoy and leave saying, "Wow, can you believe Tulsa? Can you believe that river that runs right through it?"
... We missed a tremendous opportunity when the Kaiser Family Foundation agreed to invest a lot of their personal monies in the river, and I certainly hope that our residents in the region reconsider that and, along with that, I would certainly hope that the Kaiser Family Foundation would support future opportunities to save our river. And no one wants it to become strictly commercial. All of us believe it should retain its natural effect in certain parts of the river, that we should see moving water, even the sand in the bottom of the river ... but there are also so many opportunities to create more pools of water. With the dams that we have planned, it will create those lakes, and that will happen in the next few years. It may be five years away, but that part will happen, and then we will need to develop the shorelines of the river. The dams will create the lakes, but we will then as a community have to decide how we want to utilize the banks of the river.
Those dams in the Arkansas River are part of the OneVoice agenda. Why is it important to engage the Legislature, and what are some possible gains that we can get from that?
The cost of those dams and the safety of our citizens are the reason we engage the federal government. The Corps of Engineers are in control of the water, so we have to work with them, and when we see that there are opportunities to get federal assistance for the funding and the building of those dams for safety and for beauty, then we want to take advantage of that. So that’s what we’re doing with the federal government. That’s why on our federal agenda, Sen. Jim Inhofe has agreed to help us at the federal level with some funding. We are going to have to match that funding locally and we are prepared to do that. Our chamber and the City of Tulsa and INCOG, several of the cities throughout the region have agreed to help with those because we all believe it is to the benefit to the region, not only for safety but for economic value as well.
Looking at this regionalism and increasing this cooperation, do you think that is something that will require you to further engage the mayors of those communities, or is this more about engaging and educating the people?
I think the first step will be the mayors, the mayors and the city managers. And I have heard from several of them since my comments at our chamber inauguration, and to date, without exception, they’ve all said, we’re ready. We’re ready to talk. Now, does that mean we’ll make any headway? Who knows? I may be out in left field on some of this stuff. I’m looking at it from a business perspective, not a political perspective, and I have found there’s a lot of difference between being able to run a private business and being able to run a political municipality. But I will tell you that we have some very sincere mayors and city managers in this area, in the region, and I sincerely believe they see the benefit and want to partner with one another.
You’re obviously very passionate about nonprofit and civic involvement. Why is that important to you, and will you also be focused on getting the community engaged in those types of organizations?
I’ve always felt that citizens have a responsibility to invest personal time in the community to try to make it better, to make it a better place to live. All citizens can’t do that, but those who can, should. When I went to work for Sam Walton in 1978, one of the things that he said to me personally was "Don, these chambers and civic organizations are important to the community for two reasons. One is, the community needs to grow and prosper, and the other is the moral obligation that we all have." When I put that together in my mind, I felt that if I had the privilege to serve in these organizations, then I had that moral obligation to do it. I also took from that, that unless the communities and the region were successful and growing, the businesses wouldn’t be successful. It’s necessary for all companies to ensure their associates, their employees, have a good place to live and work. Unless that community is growing, then our businesses won’t be successful. It’s really a hand-in-glove analogy that businesses need to be engaged; they need to help financially when they can. They also need to provide the human element, the human resource, to help these nonprofits and charities be successful to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.
How has a background in banking made you uniquely suited for this position, particularly in this kind of economic climate?
Fortunately, as a banker, and one who has been able to move a few times within the region, I hope I can bring some financial and leadership skills to the chamber that can be used to continue a vision. I think Tulsa was built by incredible leaders and visionaries and every decade we have the responsibility of continuing to move that vision forward. Because of previous experience and a view of the economic environment in the Tulsa region, hopefully I can help continue that vision for the next decade.
Obviously, the chamber relies on its membership for financial support and, as Arvest has grown in the region — we actually have banks in every community here in northeast Oklahoma — we are able to financially support the chamber, which is needed to drive that vision. So I’m proud to bring that as a banker, to be able to help the chamber accomplish its vision.
We have 700 employees in the region, and that gives us a good business base to work from, but it also allows us to get really good feedback from the communities that we’re in. I am certainly in touch with our banks in Jenks, Sapulpa, Sand Springs, Owasso, Broken Arrow, Bixby, and my people who work there tell me when we’re doing the right thing or when we’re doing the wrong thing. I think that helps, too, that Arvest is engaged in all our surrounding communities. That really helps me in trying to promote this partnership concept.
Generally, what you think is the biggest challenge facing Tulsa right now? And what is the biggest opportunity?
I think the biggest challenge for our chamber is to be equitable of all of our partners. … As our region grows, we have to make sure we’re doing all we can for all of our partners. … That’s the most difficult thing for our chamber, because all of our partners are important, but our true intention is to make the region successful without hurting any of our outlying communities, outlying partners.
The biggest opportunity, in my opinion, is to recreate Tulsa as a point of destination. I believe that if we can impress not only our citizens but companies and vendors that travel in and out of Tulsa on an annual basis, we create a great environment, a great experience for them, they will want to move their company here. They will help us create jobs. … That’s our opportunity. We’re not far from that today. We’re not far away.
If I look at communities like Austin, Texas, they had a university and that’s about it several years ago. But all of a sudden it became a place to be. They didn’t have to go look for companies. Companies came to them. That would be my dream for Tulsa.
