Each year, the Business Record honors a member of a previous Forty Under 40 class to recognize that person’s contributions since being named a Forty. This year, that person is Don Coffin, who on March 1 became president of Bankers Trust Co. Coffin was a member of the inaugural Forty Under 40 class in 2000.

Coffin is part of an executive leadership team that has led Bankers Trust in its sixth consecutive year of profitable growth as it works toward the bank’s long-term goal of being recognized as the highest-performing Midwest regional bank.

“Don is both a confident, highly successful executive and a compassionate, caring philanthropist who is deeply involved in helping others,” wrote Suku Radia, CEO of Bankers Trust, in nominating Coffin. “He chooses carefully where and how he serves – professionally and personally – and then goes about transforming companies and lives in ways that are truly extraordinary.”

Coffin’s deep passion is for children’s causes. He is a longtime Easter Seals volunteer, board member, foundation board member, national leader and donor at all levels. He is also on the board of Blank Children’s Hospital.

In 2011 he received the Governor’s Volunteer Award for more than 20 years of service to Easter Seals and Camp Sunnyside. In 2012, he was the recipient of Easter Seals Iowa’s first annual Bob and Billie Ray Board Leadership Award.

“Today, Easter Seals Iowa is a stronger, better community nonprofit due to Mr. Coffin’s leadership and commitment,” wrote Sherri Nielsen, CEO of Easter Seals Iowa.

Coffin also serves the community through numerous board commitments, among them United Way of Central Iowa, Iowa Business Growth Co., Iowa Bankers Mortgage Corp., Greater Des Moines Partnership, and the Des Moines Water Works Park Foundation.

Coffin began his banking career as a part-time teller in Waterloo while working on a financial management degree at the University of Northern Iowa. Following a series of promotions, he joined Hawkeye Bank (later Mercantile Bank) as executive vice president/chief lending officer, where over the course of seven years he doubled the volume of outstanding loans.

He then joined LaSalle Bank in 1999 as senior vice president, where he went on to successfully open offices in Omaha and Denver. When LaSalle was sold to Bank of America, its loan portfolio topped $1.9 billion – up from $91 million when Coffin joined the bank.

Coffin returned to community banking in 2008 when he joined Bankers Trust, Iowa’s largest independently owned bank, as senior vice president and chief lending officer. In 2013 he was promoted to executive vice president and chief lending officer. In the last six years, he has grown the bank’s total loan portfolio from $1.49 billion to more than $3 billion.

Coffin joins past Forty Under 40 alumni of the year honorees Kristi Knous (2015), Michael Sadler (2014), Carole Tillotson (2013), Jay Byers (2012), Kyle Krause (2011), Drew McLellan (2010), and Brian Laurenzo (2009).

 

Coffin will be honored at the Business Record’s Forty under 40 event on March 30 at the Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines.