Great Southern Plans First Office in Market

Publicly traded Great Southern Bancorp Inc. announced in July that it plans to open a Rogers loan production office by early September. It will be located in 1,500-SF office at Village on the Creeks.

It is the Springfield, Mo., firm’s first physical foray into Arkansas, but the bank has provided loans for Arkansas customers for years. It already has a $40 million local loan portfolio, about 90 percent of which Gary Lewis said is commercial.

“We have a substantial foothold already,” said Lewis, Great Southern’s director of commercial lending.

James Brookhart, a business administration graduate from the University of Arkansas, will be the Great Southern’s local commercial loan manager. He was at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from 1989-96 ultimately serving as director of international new store coordination, and Fayetteville investment bank Llama Co. from 1996 to 2000 where he was an operations manager.

Two years ago, Lewis said, he recruited Brookhart to manage a new business near Lake of the Ozarks because of his familiarity with lakeside communities.

Great Southern, with $1.44 billion in assets, has 28 branches in Missouri.