Forty Under 40: Nat Bothwell

He studied business and economics at Hendrix College in Conway, but that doesn’t mean Nat Bothwell, 28, had dreams of being a banker. Marketing was his intended profession.

But Bothwell didn’t realize that his roots in the banking industry had been planted during the summer after his graduation from Rogers High School. That was when Bothwell landed his first banking job at what was then First National Bank of Bentonville. During subsequent vacations, Bothwell worked with the same people, first at that bank and later at Arkansas National Bank. Bothwell studied marketing at Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he eventually earned an MBA.

ANB’s president, Dan Dykema, called Bothwell to discuss Internet banking in 1996, a prehistoric date compared to today’s banking technology. The idea, novel at the time, intrigued Bothwell.

“It was just far-fetched enough that it sounded like fun, something I could get my hands on and we could start from scratch.”

ANB was among the first 30 banks in the country with online banking. It’s much more sophisticated and capable of handling many more types of transactions these days, and Bothwell’s responsibilities have expanded to include working with the bank’s debit and credit cards, its automated teller machines and other electronic banking initiatives.