First Missouri State Bank

Year established: 2003

Locations: 2 S. Mount Auburn Road in Cape Girardeau; 800 N. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau; 1846 E. Jackson Blvd. in Jackson

Hours of operation: Lobby hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday; Drive through hours: 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday (Mount Auburn Location Only)

Number of employees: 33

Website address: www.wherefirstmeansmore.com

What products or services do you offer? We offer traditional depository services and home, auto and business loans.

Phone numbers: 334-9000, 335-9000, 243-9000

What makes your business unique?

Steve Taylor, president and CEO

Steve Taylor, president and CEO: Our headquarters is right here in Cape Girardeau. We don't have a main office in Timbuktu that makes all the "real" decisions for us. We make the decisions right here in the community where we live, work and raise our families.

What charitable organizations do you support?

ST: Being a community bank makes us community minded; and means we support more organizations than we could possibly list. We're involved in everything from schools to the hospitals to baseball teams and everything in between. If our employees have a passion for an organization, then we believe in supporting them.

What do you like about doing business in a small town?

ST: We love the people. They're our neighbors. We go to church with them. We run into them at the grocery store. Our kids go to school with their kids. The best part of a small town is that we know each other and that makes our job fun.

What may our readers find surprising about your business?

ST: It's really not "rocket science!" While we are in the financial services business, and that may be intimidating to some, we are also in the "people" business. We believe in relying on our people first and our systems second.

Are there any long-term employees you would like to recognize? Why?

ST: We've been open for 10 years now and out of our 12 original employees, 10 of them still work here. That's a testament to the good group of people that we started with. Not to mention all the great additions to our team that we've made along the way.