Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 1, 1993 TAG: 9312010080
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
His appointment Tuesday to head the Richmond company's Blue Ridge region was effective immediately.
Burress has been Signet's senior credit officer in Roanoke. He will continue to head commercial lending in the Roanoke-based region.
He succeeds Dennis Traubert, who last week was transferred to head Signet's general consumer banking operations in Hampton Roads, a larger market.
The changes are part of a general restructuring of Signet's lines of business.
Burress said Signet's regional operations in the past all have been "doing our own thing" in handling lines of banking targeted to consumers and small businesses.
As part of the new organization, regional heads of consumer and small-business banking will report directly to supervisors of those lines in Richmond.
Each line will have its own marketing and product development staff in Richmond.
The goal is to develop consistency throughout the Signet system, Burress said.
Teams working on each business line will survey the market and attempt to develop new products that meet customer needs. They will, he said, "look for things on the cutting edge" of banking.
As part of the new plan, Burress said, Danville and several surrounding counties will be cut out of the region that generally extends from Roanoke to Bristol.
Creation of that region recognizes that Danville has an agricultural marketplace that is different from the Roanoke Valley and Western Virginia, he said.
Signet, he said, is trying to look at the marketplace and lines of business to determine what it should offer now and in the future.
The goal, he said, "is to try to get more business away from First Union and all other banks."
Burress started his career in 1966 with the former First National Exchange Bank in Roanoke. That bank was the predecessor of Dominion Bank and of First Union National Bank of Virginia.
He managed First National's offices at Towers shopping center and on Grandin Road before joining Signet in May 1984 as an area manager. He later became manager of commercial lending.
He has been on the board of the Better Business Bureau of Southwest Virginia and was active in the American Heart Association.
The bank's liaison officer to Total Action Against Poverty, Burress has served on several special project committees for TAP.
Burress and his wife, Janet, walk four miles on the Patrick Henry High School track every evening.
A native of New Market, he is a nephew of the late Withers Burress, who once served as commandant of Virginia Military Institute.
A gradate of Massanutten Military Academy, Burress earned a degree in history from VMI and attended the University of Virginia's graduate school of business administration. He served three years in the Army.
His father's family had moved west from the Richmond area, he said, and his two uncles settled in Salem and Roanoke. That is the reason he gravitated here to begin his banking career.
by CNB