A new slate of officers were installed April 9 at the Arkansas Bankers Association Annual Convention, including chairman Brad Chambless of Farmers & Merchants Bank in Stuttgart; chairman-elect Chris Gosnell of Farmers Bank & Trust in Magnolia; vice chairman Jason Tennant of CS Bank in Eureka Springs; and treasurer Scott Saffold of Union Bank & Trust Co. in Monticello.
Also providing leadership for the coming year will be the ABA Board of Directors: Johnny Adams of First Security Bank in Conway; Ben Buergler of First National Bank of NWA in Bentonville; Latrecia Carroll of Stone Bank in Little Rock; Asa Cottrell of Arvest Bank in Little Rock; Joe Dunn of Stone Bank in Little Rock; Heather Jones of Bank of America in Little Rock; Jeff Lynch of Eagle Bank & Trust in Little Rock; Katherine Mitchell of Relyance Bank in Whitehall; Calvin Puryear of Merchants & Farmers Bank in Dumas; Randy Rawls of Union Bank & Trust Co. in Warren; Lori Ross of Citizens Bank in Arkadelphia; Loren Shackelford of Chambers Bank in Fayetteville; Rob Tiffee of Regions Bank in Little Rock; and Ron Witherspoon of Arvest Bank in Little Rock.
Chambless Is president and CEO of Farmers & Merchants Bank, which he joined in 2006. His roles there have also included executive vice president and board member. He is a graduate of Dumas High School and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. He went on to earn a law degree from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and practiced law in Arkansas for 10 years before entering the banking industry.
Chambless is active throughout the regional community as a board member of Acres of Help, the Arkansas County Imagination Library, the Stuttgart Rotary Club and the Arkansas Bar Association. Chambless also formerly served as a foundation board member for the Phillips County Community College of the University of Arkansas, on the ABA agricultural subcommittee, and as director and vice chairman of Arkansas Capital Corp.
Gosnell joined Farmers Bank & Trust in 2010 and was elected president and CEO in 2017. Chris brought with him six years of banking experience from northwest Arkansas when he joined the bank, having previously served as president and chief banking officer at Farmers Bank & Trust.
Gosnell received his Bachelor of Arts in administrative management and Master of Science in operations management from the University of Arkansas. He also graduated from the Graduate School of Banking in Colorado.
He is involved in numerous community activities and organizations. He is a graduate of Leadership Fayetteville Leadership Saline County Class XI. He has been a director of the ABA, a Texas Bankers Association Government Relations Committee member, a district director at Southwest Arkansas Water and a local board member for the Fayetteville chapter of Ducks Unlimited. He has also been a board member of the Arkansas State Police Foundation and the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation.
He is active in the Rotary Club of Magnolia and serves on the finance committee at First United Methodist Church in Magnolia. He and his wife, Rebecca, have two children: Grayson and Hayes.
Tennant is president and chief lending officer at CS Bank. He was born in Fayetteville and raised in Lincoln. He earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville in 1985. He then graduated from the National Commercial Lending School at the University of Oklahoma and the Southwestern School of Banking at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He has also completed multiple courses from institutions such as the ABA, Sheshunoff and the American Bankers Association.
Tennant began his career at Union National Bank in Little Rock, where he worked from 1985 to 1990. He then joined the Arvest Bank Group and worked in Fayetteville, Prairie Grove, Pea Ridge and Berryville from 1990 to 2001. After that, he worked at First National Bank of North Arkansas, now Bank of 1889, in Berryville from 2001 to 2012, when he joined CS Bank.
He and his wife, Allison, have three children, Ashley, Katherine and Andrew, and five grandchildren, Owen, William, Brody, Everett and Vivianne.
Saffold is executive vice president and chief lending officer at Union Bank & Trust Co, where he has been a member of the executive management team for 19 years. He is a certified public accountant and a graduate of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking, the ABA Commercial Lending School and numerous other banking courses.
He graduated from UAM with a Bachelor of Science in accounting, and he is a graduate of Leadership Arkansas Class V. A Monticello native, he is actively involved in the local community and serves as vice chairman of the University of Arkansas Foundation Fund Board, where he is a member of the executive and audit committee, vice chairman of the UAM Board of Visitors and a member of the UAM Foundation Fund Board.
He also served in the Arkansas Army National Guard. He and his wife, Mistye, have two children: Nora and Patrick.
Founded in 1891, the Arkansas Bankers Association works to be the voice of Arkansas’ $100 billion banking industry, which is composed of small, regional and large banks that, together, employ more than 26,000 people. The ABA is the state’s oldest and largest banking industry organization and provides a variety of member services, including educational programs, products and services, publications, and a comprehensive government relations program.
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