Tat Thompson used to have, as he says, a "tremendously nice" office.

When the 57-year-old banker was executive vice president of Regions Bank's central Georgia market, his sanctum was a richly appointed suite on the second floor of the bank's Columbia Road branch.

The roomy office - originally designed to be the board room for the community bank that first owned the building - even had a private bathroom.

Now, he is the city president of the recently created Augusta First Bank & Trust, and the surroundings are much less regal at the small building he and his staff share at an office park off Davis Road. Space is tight, there's no hardwood wainscoting and the bathroom belongs to everyone.

Fortunately, the Waynesboro native has a sense of humor.

"The first thing I did when we moved in was turn to Anita (his longtime administrative assistant) and say, 'You're in charge of getting toilet paper,'" Mr. Thompson said.

It won't be long before the career banker and his staff are sitting pretty once again. In early April, Augusta First will open an 11,000-square-foot main office on Washington Road in Evans. The office will serve as the headquarters for the five-branch network the company hopes to develop during the next five years.

Augusta First, created in late 2005 as a division of Athens First Bank & Trust, which is backed by Synovus Financial Corp., will open its first branch office on Wheeler Road during the fall. The 4,000-square-foot facility will replace the portable unit with the leaky roof that the bank has used since last spring.

The new digs will make the bank look more like a bank and eliminate awkward moments, such as the time an elderly couple went to the Davis Road office after seeing the company's advertisement for a high-interest CD.

"They looked around and said, 'Are you sure you're a bank?' " Mr. Thompson recalled.

Augusta First's current status as a scrappy startup belies the splash it has made in the marketplace. In less than 18 months under Mr. Thompson's leadership, the bank has recruited several top bankers (including Wachovia's private wealth department) away from well-entrenched competitors, secured some major commercial loans and is aggressively going after consumers with a promotional high-interest checking account product.

But the game, Mr. Thompson says, is just beginning.

"If you're competitive, and banking is a very competitive business, then you're saying to yourself, 'We're a great bank; why wouldn't everyone want to bank with us,' " he said. "But I know my competitors are saying the same thing."

The right choice

Wall Tattnall Thompson IV - no one who knows him actually calls him that - has been a leader in Augusta's banking industry for 30 years. During that time, the Waynesboro native has worked in banks both big and small, building a lifetime of relationships in the process.

"He's a great banker, and he knows this market very well," said Boone A. Knox, who recruited Mr. Thompson 20 years ago to help him run his Thomson-based Allied Bankshares, which was acquired by Regions Bank. "He'll do a good job for whoever he's working for."

Athens First made the decision in 2005 to expand east to Augusta because a westward expansion would put the company in competition with other Synovus-affiliated banks. Athens First Executive Vice President A. Middleton "Mid" Ramsey said the choice to head the Augusta operation was a no-brainer.

"The key when you go into a new market is the people," said Mr. Ramsey, an Augusta native who has known Mr. Thompson since they were students at the University of Georgia in the late 1960s. "Tat was the only name I really thought about. He's someone I have a tremendous amount of trust in."

In Mr. Thompson, they have found someone who meshes well with the Augusta business climate, which can vacillate between laid-back and cliquish.

The self-described "people person" is prone to using expressions such as "dadgum" and is as comfortable conducting business over burgers at the Sidetrack Bar & Grill as he is at a country club.

Longtime friend and client Bill Hock, the president of Hock Development Co. in Augusta, said he and Mr. Thompson will occasionally make the 45-minute drive to Lincolnton just to have a country-cooked lunch at Goolsby's Restaurant.

"There's no linen tablecloths there, but that's Tat," Mr. Hock said. "He's as comfortable dealing the chairman of the board as he is a common laborer. He's always been that way."

During the design of the new Evans main office, Mr. Thompson said that he asked that his office be on the ground floor so he can "B.S." with customers.

"His personality has the ability to attract business," Athens First Chairman James L. Laboon Jr. said.

Ironically, the man who makes banking look so easy entered the profession by chance.

Accidental career

Mr. Thompson had trouble finding a job after graduating from the University of Georgia with a political science degree in 1971. He decided to apply for banking jobs, like many of his friends were doing. However, Mr. Thompson said he was repeatedly passed over because he didn't have a business degree.

He recalls being down in the dumps one day when the late King "M.K." Tucker gave him some advice that encouraged him to keep trying.

"He was like a granddaddy to me," Mr. Thompson said of the former Waynesboro mayor, state representative and chairman of the Bank of Waynesboro. "He said, 'The banking business always has been, and always will be, the people business.' That kind of stuck with me."

His perseverance paid off, and he eventually got a job as a trainee at the Bank of the South in Atlanta and later as a mortgage originator for Hamilton Mortgage Corp. During his four-year stint in Atlanta, he met his future wife, Charlotte Howell (who works as the assistant superintendent of Burke County schools), on a blind date when she was a sophomore at Agnes Scott College.

Mr. Thompson came back to the Augusta area in 1976 and went to work at the First National Bank and Trust Co. (the forerunner of Trust Company Bank and SunTrust).

He later joined First Federal Savings and Loan Association, which was in the process of converting into a commercial bank that would eventually become Bankers First Corp.

He ran the company's network of branches until 1985, when he took the job with Mr. Knox, who spent the next two decades transforming the sleepy Bank of Thomson into a Allied Bankshares, a $600 million bank holding company with 24 offices stretching from Atlanta to Augusta.

"It was the best career move I ever made," Mr. Thompson said.

The years after Allied's 1997 acquisition by Regions would set the stage for Mr. Thompson's next big career decision.

Culture clash

Though Mr. Thompson settled in comfortably with Birmingham-based Regions, the atmosphere was much different than what he knew under Allied.

As with most bank mergers, the acquired organization gave up much of its local autonomy to the parent company's home office.

"The bigger they (Regions) got, the more centralized they got, the further away the decision-making got," said Mr. Thompson, who saw his personal-lending authority dwindle to just a fraction of the $2 million limit he had under Allied.

It was frustrating to tell clients, many of whom were longtime friends, that their loan decisions were no longer his to make.

"People really want to deal with a decision-maker," he said.

Mr. Thompson had some soul-searching to do when Athens First came calling in 2005.

"I had always thought I would stay with Regions for the duration," he said. "They were very good to me.

"I asked myself, do I want to stay and ride that surfboard to retirement, or do I want to do something new and exciting."

On his way out the door, he talked two people into coming with him: Anita Kelly, his longtime administrative assistant, and Jody Patton, his commercial loan officer.

Though his new job leaves him little time to reminisce, Mr. Thompson said he still misses his old friends at Regions.

"Leaving was the hardest thing I've had to do in my career," Mr. Thompson said. "I probably wouldn't have done it if it wasn't Synovus or someone with Synovus' reputation."

A perfect blend

Synovus is a sort of anomaly in the banking industry.

The loosely affiliated network of 40 banks in five Southeastern states blends the financial might of a big bank with the local service and decision-making ability of a small bank.

The Columbus, Ga.-based holding company is the brainchild of Augusta-born James H. "Jimmy" Blanchard, who last year retired as the company's chairman.

A godlike figure in the Georgia banking industry, Mr. Blanchard succeeded his late father as president of the small Columbus Bank & Trust in 1971. He took advantage of banking industry deregulation and began increasing his holding company through mergers and acquisitions. The company, which adopted the Synovus name in the 1980s, differed from rivals in that it followed a decentralized business model.

Synovus is known in the industry for allowing the banks it acquires to retain their identity and local leadership.

"Guys that were president then are still president now," Mr. Thompson said. "That tells you something."

Synovus, which has earned a spot on Forbes' "100 Best Companies to Work for in America" list every year since the list's creation in 1998, had 15,095 people apply for the 433 job openings it posted last year.

Synovus' red-and-gold "S" symbol in Augusta First's logo is the only way consumers would know the bank is part of $31 billion corporation with more than 350 offices.

For Mr. Thompson, decentralization has meant a return to being a decision-maker. He and his Augusta staff are trusted to make loans in excess of $1 million. With the assistance of Athens First, the Augusta division can make loans up to the parent bank's legal lending limit, currently $17 million. Larger loans could be secured by "participating the loan out" to other Synovus-affiliated institutions, Mr. Thompson said.

The small-bank service and big-bank strength is something Mr. Thompson is marketing heavily.

"We can butt heads with the Wachovias and Bank of Americas," he said. "We're the perfect blend. We're sitting right here in the middle, the best of both worlds."

But heading Synovus' first bank in Augusta, the hometown of the company's longtime chairman, is a heavy load to bear.

Mr. Thompson acknowledges he was "scared to death" during Augusta First's kickoff party last year that drew a crowd of 500, including the legendary Mr. Blanchard.

"I'll be honest, I was damn glad when it was over and that it was successful," he said.

Bring it on

The spotlight is dead-center on Mr. Thompson for the first time in his career. During the Allied-Regions years, he was behind Mr. Knox and later area President Jimmy Rigsby.

"Tat's never been in the forefront publicly, but the position he has accepted calls for that," said R. Daniel Blanton, the president and CEO of Georgia Bank & Trust Co., and a longtime friend of Mr. Thompson who is now his competitor.

"He will do a very nice job," Mr. Blanton said. "He's a good fellow."

Augusta First's new-kid-on-the-block status likely won't last for long.

Two separate investor groups are in the process of chartering locally-based banks while Aiken-based Security Federal Bank is in the midst of developing its first Georgia branch in Evans. Those operations will go up against well-entrenched community banks such as Mr. Blanton's and rivals First Bank of Georgia and Queensborough National Bank & Trust.

Of course, there are the large regional banks to contend with: Wachovia, Regions, Bank of America and SunTrust.

Such competition in a midsize market raises the question: Is Augusta First's goal of five branches and $300 million in assets within five years plausible?

Yes, says Mr. Thompson, who argues the Augusta market is underserved.

"When you take the credit unions out of the equation, you've got only about eight banks in Augusta," he said. "In Savannah you have 22 or 23, so we're not as overbanked as we may seem."

Mr. Thompson said the company's results will surprise many in the banking industry.

Just how well Augusta First performed during its first full-year in operation won't be publicly known until the 2006 Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. figures are released in October.

All that Mr. Thompson will say right now is this: "We far exceeded our first-year projections in loans and deposits."

Though he declines to elaborate, the smile on his face says he is more than just a little pleased.

Reach Damon Cline at (706) 823-3486 or damon.cline@augustachronicle.com.