Overland Park, KS -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/10/2018 -- The Kansas Bankers Association (KBA) is pleased to announce that Kurt Knutson, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Freedom Bank, Overland Park, has been inducted as Chairman-elect. He was elected by his peers in July and inducted to Chairman-elect at the KBA Annual Meeting at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs on August 4, 2018.

Kurt is a commercial banker with 35 years of banking experience. In 2006, he led a group of local business leaders to form Freedom Bank, which serves privately held companies throughout the greater Kansas City metropolitan area as well as the southern Johnson County residential community. Knutson was appointed by Governor Brownback to the Kansas State Banking Board in 2011, re-appointed in 2013 and re-appointed again in 2017 for a term expiring March 2019. He served as Chairman of the State Banking Board from 2013-2016. In 2013 Knutson was elected by his peers to serve on the KBA board where he served through 2016. He was Chairman of the State Affairs Committee until his term expired in July of 2018. He is also a member of the KBA Federal Affairs Committee. Outside of banking, Knutson serves on the Board of Clements Worldwide based in Washington, D.C. Clements is a leading provider of insurance solutions for expatriates and international organizations. He is actively involved in the southern Johnson County community and resides in Overland Park.

About The Kansas Bankers Association
The Kansas Bankers Association organized in 1887 and was one of the five state bank associations in the country. Throughout the Association's 131-year history, thousands of Kansas bankers have given unselfishly of their time and talents to maintain the viability of the banking industry in Kansas. The Kansas banking industry employs 14,701 throughout the state, serves 3.5 million customers with $73.3 billion in deposits and $2.8 billion in loans. Kansas bankers provide approximately 70,922 hours of volunteer time in their communities annually.

For more information regarding the KBA Board of Directors contact VP of Communications & Marketing, Mary Taylor at 785-232-3444 or at mtaylor@ksbanker.com.

The mission statement of the Kansas Bankers Association is to support and assist Kansas banks and Kansas bankers.

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Overland Park, KS -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/08/2017 -- Freedom Bank has been granted a registered trademark on the term Guest Plaza®, the name of its unique retail banking delivery model. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted the bank registered trademark status on August 22, 2017, and the bank was officially notified last week of the registration number (Reg. No. 5,271,042).

The registration establishes the bank's legal ownership of the Guest Plaza® name and it demonstrates Freedom Bank has established a distinct identity in the marketplace and that its claim to the term has been established through consistent and long term use. The bank will discontinue the use of the "™" symbol for the term and will replace it with the "®" symbol on all marketing materials, signage, and electronic use.

"We've got the circle 'R' now, and that's a really valuable piece of intellectual property for our young company as we continue to build our brand," said Kurt Knutson, the bank's founder, and CEO. "The Guest Plaza® is a warm and welcoming experience in an industry that had become cold, stale and "me too" in its offerings. It sounds simple – customer empathy, but in the banking world, it had become completely misunderstood. The future of banking belongs to customer-centric service, comfortable, well designed, welcoming retail environments – with a staff that understands their mission of going the extra mile for the people they serve. We started with a blank page and zero-base engineered the entire customer experience – from our customers' point of view" said Knutson.

Freedom Bank's Guest Plaza® features comfortable areas to relax, meet with friends or catch up on reading with a wide cross-section of consumer magazines and a library of financial reference publications. The seating ranges from isolated lounge chairs to cafe style clusters for casual coffee and conversations. Free Wi-Fi and a guest computer (if you didn't bring your own) allows guests to check up on email or do some research. The Guest Plaza® has been so well received that the bank changed when it opened (7:30 am Monday through Friday) to meet the customers' desire for their Starbucks® coffee on their way to work. The bank also changed to be open on traditional "bank" holidays, giving employees the option to take the day off or use that day as a floating holiday for their own use. "The Guest Plaza® is an important part of our customers' daily routine – we want to make it the highlight of their day" added Knutson.

Knutson went on to state, "A primary concern lies in the competitor who decorates instead of designs, who takes the shortest route by replicating rather than fabricating an experience to meet their customers' desires. In doing so, they tarnish the work of those who put the time and effort into being genuine and authentic. We take the protection of our intellectual property seriously and protect our proprietary processes, design, and technologies. The trademark is an element of that protection."

Another important element to the Guest Plaza® is that there are no lines at Freedom Bank. You are greeted by a smiling concierge and you have multiple options to conduct your business without waiting in a line. "The term 'lobby' had to be changed in our retail delivery model – there is so much tradition of waiting in a lobby – a negative tradition from a customer's perspective. Our customers love the Guest Plaza®!" said Knutson.

Knutson has 34 years of banking experience and 31 years in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Knutson led a group of local investors in the 2006 establishment of Overland Park-based Freedom Bank, where he is Chairman and CEO. Freedom Bank opened into strong headwinds and has performed well throughout an extremely difficult time period for the banking industry. There have been 526 bank failures since Freedom Bank opened its doors in June of 2006. The bank focuses on its community and banking privately-held businesses throughout metropolitan Kansas City. As of August 31, 2017, the bank's total assets were $175 million.

For more information visit www.ibankwithfreedom.com.

Location Information:
6640 West 143rd Street
Overland Park, Kansas 66223

Contact:
Kurt Knutson
Founder, Chairman & CEO, Freedom Bank
913-563-5678 direct
913-530-6842 mobile
kknutson@ibankwithfreedom.com

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