Hudson Brown: NCSB Floating Relationship Banker

Hudson Brown: NCSB Floating Relationship Banker

If you bank at the Canton branch of North Country Savings Bank, you might recognize NCSB’s Floating Relationship Banker Hudson Brown, if just for his snappy sense of style. He faithfully wears a necktie to work Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, Brown bumps it up a notch, or knot.

“Every Friday is bow tie Friday. It adds a fun, macro rhythm and ritual to an otherwise routine day,” says Brown, who especially enjoys how his fun Friday fashion statement often brings a smile to NSCB customers’ faces. In a sense, his workwear ritual is an outward expression of the characteristics Brown brings to his work at North Country Savings Bank: discipline, creativity, and a drive to make customers happy.

As a floating relationship banker, Brown’s primary focus is attending to the needs of customers that come in seeking assistance.  While he usually works at the Canton branch, he assists other branches as well (aka “floating”).

“My job is to make sure that the bank operates smoothly, and every customer who comes in gets the service they’re looking for,” says Brown. That can mean helping customers apply at NCSB for personal loans or open deposit accounts, such as checking, savings and CD accounts. It also means troubleshooting any issue a customer may need help resolving.

Brown moved back to the Canton area in 2020 specifically for his job opportunity with NCSB. “It’s been a really amazing working environment,” said Brown.

Brown spent 10 years growing up in the area before moving to the Midwest. His grandparents, Walt and Sherry Theobald, former farmers in Potsdam, provided an ongoing connection to the Adirondacks all of these years. He studied music at Wheaton College outside of Chicago and worked in the music industry playing viola and teaching music before he decided that he wanted more stable work. So he moved back to the Canton area to take a job with NCSB.

Brown still plays viola at church, in small chamber music ensembles and in the pit orchestra for the occasional musical. He also teaches music lessons to a handful of local students. He likens teaching music to helping to meet customer needs or resolve their banking issues.

“When teaching music, I’m always speaking with and listening to students, always diagnosing what’s going on, and reading what’s there on the surface and what’s there underneath it in order to identify how I can best serve this person,” says Brown. “I use many of the same skills when assisting customers to ensure that they are achieving what they sought to accomplish. You need to hear their situation and parse out what the actual issue is to help fix that problem for them.”

Brown sums up his role neatly, like the final note in a composition:

“NCSB is a bank in the community, for the community. And as a floating relationship banker, I’m making sure that the two stay in tune, so that we can all accomplish great things.”

We’re glad he moved back to the area to be a part of the NCSB community and part of the community at large that we all call home.