Then & Now: Tor Faulk synonymous with First Western Bank

Editor’s Note: The following story appeared in the June 6 issue of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal. “Then & Now” is a profile of a past member of the Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class.

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Mayberry, N.C., the fictional town of the iconic 1960s television series “The Andy Griffith Show,” is often considered an idyllic example of simpler times and genteel living.

Like many people who grew up in Northwest Arkansas, that rocking-chair pace is how Tor Faulk remembers Rogers in the late 1970s.

“In that time, the major employers were manufacturers,” Faulk said in a recent interview. “And, of course, that small company in Bentonville called Walmart was on the march.”

Faulk, 61, has been a banker in the Northwest Arkansas market for almost 40 years. For the past 23 years, he’s become the most seasoned and tenured loan officer in the region while working for Booneville-based First Western Bank. Faulk, promoted to executive vice president this past December, said that the impact of stakeholder investments over the past four decades has helped transform the region from Mayberry into something more like Asheville, a much larger and urban North Carolina town.

“It has been awesome to witness and participate in the service sector,” Faulk said. “There were many [people] in this area who thought they could, and they did. That includes Roy Webster, John Tyson, Sam Walton, Johnnie Hunt, and the list goes on. Those are some prominent names. But there are a host of people I have served over the years who thought they could, and they did.”

Faulk graduated from Rogers High in 1978 and the University of Arkansas in 1983 with a finance and banking degree. He took a job as a manager trainee at Dallas Federal Savings and Loan but moved back to Northwest Arkansas in less than a year to work as a consumer lender for FirstBank in Bentonville. During nine years at the bank, he was promoted to vice president.

In 1992, he joined Worthen Bank. He helped the bank open a Bentonville branch and was promoted to vice president. In April 1996, Faulk joined Simmons First Bank of Northwest Arkansas. He was vice president of commercial lending in 1998 when the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal named him a Forty Under 40 honoree.

The following year, Faulk went to work for First Western Bank, which first ventured into the Northwest Arkansas market in 1991 by buying a failed Rogers savings and loan for $7 million. The company has five full-service retail branches in Benton County — 11 in Arkansas — and had assets of $585.2 million as of March 31.

Faulk said Simmons First had a strong community banking philosophy, and working for the company was “wonderful.” First Western’s appeal was to impact an organization beyond what he could in a larger company.

“After 23 years, I haven’t been run off yet,” he joked.

Landon Taylor, bank president and chief operating officer for First Western Bank in Rogers, said Faulk prefers to work under the radar and let his accomplishments and work speak for themselves.

“He is very much a company-first guy and thinks about others well before he thinks of himself and his wants or needs,” Taylor said. “His name and First Western have been used synonymously together for years, and while he’s had opportunities to leave, he’s chosen to stay. That speaks a lot to his loyalty and ‘old-school’ thinking.”

As his career progressed, Faulk’s perspective on his family has strengthened. He and his wife, Teresa, have four children. The oldest, Amelia, died in 2017. She was born in 1990 with Osteogenesis Imperfecta or brittle bone disease.

“After Amelia left, Teresa and I focused more on our family,” he said. “We’ve started taking trips and love going to national parks. My family is precious to me, and I love them beyond words.”

Faulk is passionate about community banking. He said working for First Western for more than two decades has been easy because of his colleagues.

“I adore the people I work with,” he said. “I think you’ve got to love what you do, or it’s just a ‘J-O-B.’ So find something you enjoy and get to it.”

If that sounds like someone who isn’t thinking about retirement, that is accurate.

“It’s sort of like fruit; I’m fully ripened and probably need to be thrown out by now,” Faulk joked. “As long as I can impact those around me positively and my health permits, I would like to work as long as practical. If they’ll have me, I’ll be here.”