Matthew Bower, Executive Vice President and Director of Wealth Management at C&N, spoke with MONTCO Today about growing up in Palm Beach, Fla., where his dad, also a banking executive, and a very talented jazz musician, inspired both his career and his diverse taste in music. He also shared how his work ethic drove him to get his first job as a dishwasher at 13.
Bower diverged slightly from his dad’s path by going into the Private Banking and Investment Management space rather than the Retail and Commercial side his father pursued, and he’s stayed in this industry for nearly three decades. He shared C&N’s growth plans and why being a mid-sized bank is a double-edged sword.
Where were you born and where did you grow up?
I was born the youngest of two kids in Palm Beach, Fla.
What did your mom do? What did your dad do?
My father started one of the first Savings and Loans in Lake Worth, Fla., in 1967. He came down from Decatur, Ill., in January of 1966 for a job interview. He got off the airplane and immediately called my mother and said, “Pack your bags, we’re moving to West Palm,” before he even had the interview with the Board. And the rest is history.
My mom, before she moved down, was a dental hygienist. And I am the only one in the family born in Florida. I spent the bulk of my early life down south.
What do you remember about growing up in Palm Beach?
Palm Beach was not what it is today! You could ride your bicycle up and down Dixie Highway on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and you wouldn’t bump into a piece of traffic. At that time, it felt like a small community. You knew everybody. Your parents were friends with the principals and deans and high school coaches. The sense of community and connectivity there was neat.
Did you play any sports in high school?
I played baseball through most of high school and early college.
What position did you play?
I wanted to play second base all the time, or shortstop, but I played wherever the coach told me to play. If you want to be out on the field, you learn very early that the coach is in charge.
What were you best at? What was your favorite position?
I enjoyed second base. But it was all about fun more than anything. I wasn’t where I needed to be as a hitter though. … Something about a 60 mph ball coming at me I had a hard time with!
What about jobs when you were growing up?
One of my greatest memories is when I came home one day and I told my dad, “I’d like to get a job. They’re looking for a dishwasher at the Patio restaurant.” He asked me, “Why do you need a job?” I said, “I’d like to have some of my own money.” I was 13. That’s back when they would allow you to do that kind of stuff.
Long story short, I would bicycle to the Patio restaurant, and I loved every single minute of it. There wasn’t an aspect to it that I didn’t enjoy. I was the busboy and dishwasher, and I could also come in a little early and get a free dinner. I was paid $3.35 an hour.
Down the road, I left the Patio and got another job. I think they were paying me $4.65 an hour. And if I worked on Sundays, I got time and a half. I thought I was just the king of the world.
What did you learn from those jobs, Matthew, that stays with you?
What I was doing was important to me. I felt an obligation to deliver.
Not to disparage today’s youth, but you hear these odd stories that it’s not so much about the job and that you can go anywhere you want to go and the heck with it — it’s about having fun. I mean, I got up and worked. I didn’t complain about coming in. I didn’t wake up saying, “I don’t want to be here” or thinking that I could just quit; it felt like an obligation.
I enjoyed the fruits of the labor, which was a small paycheck every week. I felt good that I had a few dollars in my pocket and didn’t have to ask Mom and Dad for money all the time.
Where does that work ethic and positive attitude come from?
I would say it was my dad. My father came from the era of the late ’60s and the banking space. It didn’t feel like he worked extraordinarily hard. But in a community like that back in those days, you didn’t want to let anybody down. You didn’t want to let your parents down. You didn’t want to let your neighbors down. You didn’t want to be looked at as a flunky. So, I think the work ethic was, “Hey, if I want something, I’m going to have to go out and earn it.”
We were fortunate. I grew up in a pretty upper-middle-class family. I didn’t want for anything. But outside of a very few small periods of time in college, I’ve never not had a job.
What kind of music did you like when you were growing up?
My father was a Jazz Musician and a Piano Player. He was extraordinarily talented. He used to be in a band called the Decatur Dixieland Jazz Band. It used to be on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour from time to time. He had the opportunity to play session music with Thelonious Monk. I had the chance to grow up listening to some really significant jazz music, Dixieland music, philharmonic music or orchestral music, classical music, and rock and roll. So, my music taste is pretty broad.
Did you have a favorite artist growing up, whatever the genre was?
I was turned on to stuff like Chicago and Dave Brubeck. I had my share of Led Zeppelin and Bachman-Turner Overdrive and The Beatles. There’s not any particular genre that I didn’t engage in in some way, shape, or form. And while I was not a massive fan of hip-hop, there is a lot of good stuff there as well.
Where did you end up going to college and why there?
I chose Florida State as my undergrad. It was an in-state college, and it was the furthest college away from Mom and Dad. Growing up in Florida back then, it felt like, for the most part, there were two college options — Florida State and the University of Florida — not to knock on any University of Miami folks out there.
Was it a good choice for you, in hindsight?
I wouldn’t have changed it for anything. I have lifelong friends from there. There wasn’t an aspect to that experience that I didn’t enjoy.
Did you get your MBA, too?
I went to Texas A&M Law School for my master’s in Law some time later. I was recruited right out of college with Citicorp. I was a Staff Aide at the Florida House of Representatives for one of the state representatives there.
I had the chance to be recruited out of campus to go to Citicorp, and I went right into that business. Even though my father was in the industry, on mostly the retail and lending side — the good old-fashioned savings world — I took a different path, focusing on investments. After Citicorp, my career evolved into personal investments, investment management, and private banking.
Looking back over your career Matthew, who saw promise in you?
Through the course of my career, coming out of college and then trying to figure things out, the people that I met and the people that I wanted to impress, the people that had trust in me and saw the hard work that I put in, they were consistently there to move me along in my career. There are a few very significant people in my life who were there for me and said, “Hey, let’s give you another shot. I know you don’t know what you’re doing, but I think you’re the one to do it.”
The first one would unequivocally have to be my dad. My dad was instrumental in pushing me to be more than what I think could have drifted into on my own.
And then there were a couple of other folks in my career, like a gentleman by the name of Mark Stevens. Mark Stevens used to be the Vice Chairman of Northern Trust. Mark was instrumental in getting me into that next phase of my career — leadership, management, and significant roles with significant responsibility at relatively young ages.
More recently, a wonderful colleague by the name of Daria Placitella was very instrumental in supporting me and moving me through my career. I do think it’s important to note that many of my fellow C&N executives are just as important as past mentors. Without these talented and encouraging people, it would be hard to grow as an executive, even with my experience to date.
What do you think they saw in you?
I would like to think that they saw a level of trust and confidence — a level of moral compass and ethical compass and that I wasn’t afraid to take on responsibility and be accountable. If somebody knocked on my door and said, “Hey, we want you to do this,” I would deliver for them. And if I fell short, I wouldn’t make excuses but own it and focus on what I should have done to succeed.
How did you get to C&N Wealth Management?
I had the absolute pleasure of coming through an executive recruiting firm that this bank uses specifically for executives. Our current CEO, Brad Scovill; our current Chief Information Officer, Alex Balagour, and myself all came through this firm.
The opportunity to take 20-plus years of a career and put it to an organization where you can really get your fingerprints on something was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I started to engage with them in late 2021 and made a decision to join them in very early 2022.
Here you are, in the first part of 2025. What are your priorities through the end of the year?
The priority is implementing and instituting the vision that we all have as an executive leadership team to move this institution in the direction it wants to go. Being a bank of our size is a double-edged sword. We are small enough to be nimble and personal, but we also are big enough to be fully comprehensive in our offering. We all have a collective vision for the future, and now we need to enact these plans to be even bigger and broader in what we do as an organization.
How would you and your team like C&N to be seen?
We want to be one of the banks that you say, “Let me go talk to these folks and see what they can do.” We can accomplish so much more when we can have that personal connection with our clients and our prospects. We have the ability to be very creative and to think outside of the box.
People are pleasantly surprised when they talk to us about doing business because there’s not a thing we can’t do. Our capability, skill set, and product offerings are as big and broad as almost any organization. We run a $2 billion wealth management group. We’re a $2.7 billion bank. We give out $100 million loans when we need to. We give out $50,000 loans when we need to and we serve families in the Wealth Management Group with diverse wealth profiles and levels of complexity. So, if somebody stops by to say, “I’m interested in doing this,” probably nine times out of 10, we’re able to do it and do it extremely well.
What do you do with all that free time that you have, Matthew?
Well, I’m not sure how much free time I really have right now, but one of the things at our bank that we enjoy is that we work hard, but we have some fun at the same time.
My wife and I love to travel. We love to cook. We enjoy wine. We are beginning our process, since we moved to the Doylestown Marketplace in mid-2022, of getting engaged with the community and the charitable organizations that are out there, beginning to build friendships and networks.
And then, although it might sound a little boring, the history that you have in this vicinity is amazing. We live across the street from where the Doan Gang used to hang out; I found out they were relatively important folks, depending on your view, back in the day. Down the road from where I live is the Washington Crossing, and you have these pubs that were built in 1710. You don’t have that sort of stuff back home.
Three last questions for you, Matthew. What’s something big that you’ve changed your mind about over the last 10 years?
Moving overseas or starting a Bed & Breakfast. We had an option after I left my last provider. We were in a relatively fortunate situation, and we thought about packing it in and going and doing something different. That idea was always in our head, but not now. I’ve got a commitment. We are excited about what we’re doing and what we’re building here in this marketplace. But we got close to saying, “Let’s go travel. Let’s enjoy the world, do something different.”
It was a big decision because, on one level, you wonder whether you gave something up. But I wouldn’t have had these friendships that I’m building and this business that I’m building.
It’s a crazy world out there. How do you stay hopeful and optimistic?
I look at the history of this country. I look at the great things that happen on small levels. I saw something on the news the other night: Somebody had their basketball hoop stolen and the local police department came by with a brand-new one. If I had known that this young man had his basketball net stolen, I would have bought him another one.
I think what keeps us as a society here in the United States moving in the right direction is not so much the global stuff but the small daily things that make us human beings. I’m optimistic about what the future holds.
Finally, Matthew, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
The gentleman’s name was Scott Merritt. He said to me, “You will always be better than what you think you are.”
On some level, he was absolutely right. I feel as though I can be better than even what I think I am if I stay positive and move forward. So that advice will always stay with me. I get up every day and deliver what I need to and what I want to as a husband, father, and business partner. And the die is cast after that. It’s the best I can do.
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Learn more about Bower and how the C&N Wealth Management team can help you reach your goals. As “Your Bank for a Lifetime,” C&N’s mission is to create value through lifelong relationships with its neighbors in Pennsylvania and New York. C&N offers a variety of banking solutions, including checking accounts, savings accounts, mortgages, business loans, and more, and believes managing your finances should be a fulfilling and trouble-free experience.
