Your neighborhood bank wouldn’t be complete without a hometown guy! Fortunately, 1st Source Bank is in good hands with Josh Birky, Banking Center Manager in Kouts, Indiana.
Birky’s love for his hometown has been fostered since childhood and through his teenage years. While attending Kouts High School, he was a major player on the men’s varsity volleyball team, achieving all-conference status in his senior year. Now, a strong local leader, Birky was invited by the Porter County Conference (PCC) to speak at their annual Academic Banquet to share how his involvement in high school athletics has impacted his adult life.
“When I was in high school, I played a position called libero, which is essentially a defensive specialist,” Birky said. “The whole match, the libero has attackers from the other side of the net hitting volleyballs at them as hard as they can...One time, one of these hit me in the face, not only scoring a point for the other team but humiliating me and demotivating me at the same time. I had to learn at that moment what it meant to be resilient, learn the tendencies of the attackers, and how to adjust to the attack.”
Lessons like these carried directly over into his professional life. While pursuing his bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Marketing at Grace College in Warsaw, Indiana, Birky was laid off from an internship position and was required to tap into the resiliency he developed in high school.
“I was humiliated and confused, but I had to make a choice,” he said. “I decided to seek out mentors that would help me understand how to be professional and how I could improve my performance for the future. I had to ‘adjust to the attack’ and learn from it.”
Because of experiences like these, Birky has become an excellent role model himself. After working as a teller and bank manager in Warsaw for a stint, he and his wife returned to Kouts when his first son was born in 2011. He was active in the family business for a little while before he accepted his first position at 1st Source Bank.
“I was then hired by 1st Source Bank to manage a banking center in Chesterton,” Birky said. “After a year there, the position in Kouts became available and I jumped at the opportunity! I have now been managing the Kouts banking center for four years.”
Now firmly rooted in Kouts with his wife and three children, Birky has become incredibly involved in the community as an active member on the Kouts Town Council, Porter County Swine Council, Porter County Community Foundation, and a youth leader at his church. Among his favorite involvements, however, is his role as head coach of the Kouts men’s varsity volleyball team.
“Coaching to me is so much more than teaching them the skills of volleyball,” Birky said. “It’s teaching these guys skills that they can apply for the rest of their lives. It is so rewarding for me to watch where some kids start and see the progress they make. That is the motivation for me to continue coaching.”
Not surprisingly, Birky works for a company that shares the same values of giving back.
“1st Source not only understands the value of small communities, but is active in demonstrating this value,” Birky said. “I love being one of the faces of 1st Source Bank in our community and am proud to work in a company that promotes involvement in small communities.”
Birky and 1st Source have been heavily involved in many local projects, including their contribution of $25,000 to the reconstruction of a nearby park and support of the 4-H Celebration Sale both financially and through volunteerism. Because of their dedication to Kouts and Porter County as a whole, both Birky and 1st Source are able to fulfill the primary purpose of the banking industry: to support the local community
To learn more about Josh Birky, 1st Source, and the many ways they give back to Northwest Indiana, please visit their website here!
