Forty Under 40: Dean Morris

Dean Morris learned about the credit card industry from the bottom up. When he was just a teenager, he sat in the back office at his dad’s company, Community Bankers Merchant Services, taking knuckle busters apart and putting them back together.

Mundane work, but formative.

“My dad was a firm believer that everybody should start from the bottom and it taught me how to work,” he said.

These days, Morris is the company’s chief operating officer and executive vice president. That he’s now running the company his dad founded in 1990 is no surprise. Morris knew from an early age that credit card processing was a growth industry.

“I figured out that what we did was only going to go up,” he said. “As a teenager, I knew this was no stepping stone.”

The company employs 15 people and serves community banks in 42 states. Community Bankers just bought a credit card processing company in Florida and is looking to buy more businesses in the near future.

Morris, a standout athlete at Shiloh Christian, once made six interceptions in a single game — a state record. A football walk-on at the University of Arkansas, Morris shares his love of athletics with his wife, Mila, and their three children, Presley, Paige and Parker.

“Being a father is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, thing I’ve ever done,” he said.