Crews Bank & Trust Promotes Andrew Foreman to Market President

Longtime region president of Crews Bank & Trust Donna McKown retired in May 2024, calling for new leadership. The bank has promoted senior vice president and senior commercial banker Andrew Foreman to become the new market president in Polk County. 

“It’s an honor. It’s a great opportunity for me and my career,” said Foreman, who was born in Winter Haven, raised in Hardee County and now lives in Bartow. “I’ve only been with Crews – they plucked me out of college. I started writing loan documents and worked my way up to this position. I am grateful to the Crews family for putting their trust in me to lead the Lakeland market and now Polk County as a whole.” 

Foreman graduated from South Florida State College in Avon Park, where he earned a business degree. He led the Polk County lending team when the Crews family unified its four brands in 2023. In December they will celebrate the third anniversary of the fully functioning branch in downtown Lakeland. 

“I’ve had a chance to grow our customer base to where our business is really relationship based. We know the names of our customers and they know ours. They have our cell numbers,” Foreman said. “I want to continue to grow those relationships for generations.” 

The Unification of Crews Bank & Trust

In 2023, the Crews family unified its four brands under the Crews Bank & Trust name, which now has 19 locations. All branches have rebranded and sport the new deep navy blue, red and white color scheme. The banks were formerly known as:  

• Wauchula State Bank, founded in 1929. Foreman oversees that bank’s branches in Lakeland and Winter Haven. 
• Charlotte State Bank. 
• Englewood Bank.  
• First State Bank of Arcadia.  

During the unification, Foreman said he and the team spent time ensuring customers were onboard. “We wanted to make sure they knew it was a unification, not a merger or a sale, that it was still owned by the Crews family, who are involved day to day.” 

He thinks it’s working very well. “The unification was well-received by a lot of our customers,” he said. “We just had to tell the story – why we did it. We’re now a $2 billion bank. We want to continue to grow. We can do that using the Crews Bank & Trust name, especially when we move into new markets. Some people hate to see the names they grew up with go, but overall, the unification went very well.” 

Customers have taken note of the positives, Foreman said. “They can bank at all locations instead of the limited ones their bank was associated with. There’s more availability with ATMs — 50,000 when you include our partners. This has greatly expanded our footprint.”  

New Roles

Donna McKown worked her way up the ladder at Wauchula State Bank, and was named market president for the Heartland Region in 2018. She oversaw Polk, Hardee, Highlands and DeSoto counties. 

Since retiring, McKown’s position is now divided into three roles: 

• Foreman will oversee Polk County. 
• Rob Roberts, former senior commercial banker at Wauchula State Bank, is the new market president for Highlands County. 
• Justin Fussell, the market president for DeSoto County, now is market president for DeSoto and Hardee counties. “It was a natural move for him. Justin has really close ties to both those communities. He’s a seventh-generation Floridian, and those counties are very similar and have a lot of the same legacy customers,” Foreman said.  

“Polk is emerging, a growth market,” he said. “We want to capture much more market share and grow our Lakeland and Winter Haven branches.” 

In the other three counties, Crews Bank already has larger shares of the market. Roberts, Fussell and their teams will work to grow the existing customer bases there, according to Foreman. 

Moving Forward

Foreman believes he was chosen as the market president because he is trustworthy and holds the Crews family’s values to heart. “Their values center on how they want their customers taken care of. And they truly value you as an employee. It is a family of employees.” 

He also admires the family for wanting to move forward, something he wants to do as well. He’s actively involved in the Central Florida Development Council, the Winter Haven Economic Development Council and the Lakeland Tigertown Rotary. He would like to join the boards of those and others as he develops in his career. 

The bank sponsors many events, including the Lakeland Flying Tigers, Hope House and Lakeland Rotary Club, to name a few, and it holds literacy classes at the Lakeland branch. 

There’s still more to accomplish, he said. “I hope to continue with the Crews family for 40+ more years, like Donna [McKown] did. I look forward to that longevity with the organization because of how they care for their employees and customers.”