Patrick H. Reilly did not set out to spend half a century in banking. He was a music major.

After graduating from Gettysburg College in 1975 into a struggling economy, Reilly found himself driving elderly clients to doctor’s appointments for $5 an hour at the Adams County Office for Aging. With a wedding approaching that October, he figured he needed what he called “a real job.” Banking, he decided, had a certain appeal.

“It was right in the middle of things,” Reilly said. “The local economy has a big impact on people’s lives. You had the ability to help people buy a home, buy a car. Things that I was interested in, things that I enjoyed, all came together in banking.”

On Sept. 30, Reilly will retire as president and chief executive officer of Mauch Chunk Trust Company in Jim Thorpe after more than 35 years with the institution; 30 of them as its top executive. He began his banking career in March 1976 at the Bank of Hanover in Hanover, Pennsylvania, making his tenure in the industry exactly 50 years.

An internal successor

If Reilly has a single point of pride heading into retirement, it is this: He will not be replaced by an outsider.

Nicole Barbaro, who joined Mauch Chunk Trust in 2007 as a teller and rose through the ranks to become executive vice president and chief financial officer, has been named his successor.

“I’m delighted with the choice of successor,” Reilly said. “The fact that we had several internal candidates and Nicole was selected — that’s probably the thing I’m happiest about.”

Finding leadership succession is among the most pressing challenges facing community banks today, he said, and having a qualified candidate rise from within was something he did not take for granted.

Building a philosophy

Before arriving at Mauch Chunk Trust on Jan. 2, 1991, Reilly spent 16 years at the Bank of Hanover. His many roles ranged from collecting delinquent loans to running the bank’s marketing department. He eventually served as chief financial officer.

It was there that a mentor, trust department officer Roy Adelsperger, invited the young marketing director into the bank’s senior management committee at a moment when the industry was being transformed by deregulation. Reilly credits that decision with shaping everything that followed.

“Being the young guy — young and dumb — I could ask all the questions the older guys were afraid to ask because they didn’t want to look stupid,” he said. “I could look stupid because I was young.”

The experience taught him to engage across disciplines and to view leadership as something earned through usefulness rather than title. Those lessons became central to how he ran Mauch Chunk Trust for three decades.

“Customer focus first,” he said of what he hopes the next generation of leadership carries forward. “Everything we do needs to start with and end with what’s best for the customer.”

Staying independent

Over the past three decades, hundreds of community banks across Pennsylvania have been absorbed by larger regional and national institutions. Mauch Chunk Trust, founded in 1864 and incorporated in 1902, has remained locally owned throughout.

Reilly attributed the bank’s independence to a clear sense of mission and consistent execution.

“Focus on your core mission. You’ve got to have value to the community,” he said. “You’ve got to be a good corporate citizen, and you’ve got to take care of your customers.”

Of the many challenges he navigated — the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of digital banking — Reilly said the hardest chapter was not the pandemic itself but what followed.

“The aftermath of the pandemic was really the most challenging,” he said. “It was the changes in the interest rate environment afterward.”

When asked how he managed through turbulent periods, Reilly reached for perspective over strategy.

“You can’t control what happens,” he said. “You can only control how you respond to what happens.”

‘Enlightened self-interest’

Beyond the bank, Reilly spent years chairing the Blue Mountain Hospital board, leading the Partners for Progress visioning group, serving as a longtime board chairman at Marian Catholic High School in Hometown, and holding a leadership role at the Carbon Chamber and Economic Development Corporation.

“Our organization can only be as healthy and strong as the community is healthy and strong,” Reilly said. “Anything we can do to make the community better is good for us ultimately. It’s enlightened self-interest on the part of a bank.”

One program that grew out of his community involvement became a source of particular satisfaction: the bank’s Community Heroes initiative, which annually recognizes unsung volunteers across Carbon County.

The idea, he said, came from a simple observation made over years of sitting on boards and committees.

“There’s an awful lot of people that get zero recognition, but they do all the work,” Reilly said. “They don’t want the recognition, but they deserve it.”

Partners for Progress, a community visioning group Reilly chaired for years, also produced tangible results — among them a dental van, later taken over by St. Luke’s, and the groundwork for what became the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce.

Ghost tours and CD challenges

Not every initiative Reilly launched was born in a boardroom. One of his more lasting contributions to Jim Thorpe began with a stroll through Gettysburg.

After noticing lantern-lit tour groups winding through the historic borough one evening, Reilly returned home and brought the concept to his Rotary Club. Kathy Ruff produced the first script, and his daughter Elizabeth served as the first tour guide. The ghost tours have grown substantially in the years since.

“That’s one where I look at that and think, that’s cool,” Reilly said.

Inside the bank, Reilly brought the same impulse for creativity to marketing. During the years when Lou Holtz was coaching Notre Dame and the Nittany Lions and the Fighting Irish no longer met on the football field, he launched a CD challenge that pitted the two fan bases against each other — rates ticking up with every win, ending in an annual victory party.

He pushed back on the familiar adage that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.

“I think that’s complete and total crap,” Reilly said. “You’re going to have bad days. But a solid B — eight out of 10 — that’s pretty good. You should enjoy coming to work eight out of 10 days. If you do, you’re in the right spot.”

By his own assessment, he cleared that bar comfortably during his time at Mauch Chunk Trust.

“I’ve been at least a B-plus, maybe an A-minus here for the last 35 years,” Reilly said.

Looking back

Asked what advice he would offer his 1975 self, Reilly paused before settling on relationships.

“I was a lot more task-focused 50 years ago than I am now,” he said. “What you learn is that the people you work with, the people around you, are very important. To cherish those relationships a little more; perhaps that would be a better way to put it.”

He also credited the bank’s board of directors.

“I’ve been fortunate,” he said. “I’ve got tremendous support from our board of directors over the years. Not every CEO has that.”

As for what retirement looks like, Reilly said that he is not concerned about filling the time, although he acknowledged the question comes up often.

“I’ll find something to do, or something will find me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the change.”