Elsaesser elected chairman of IMCB board

SANDPOINT — Intermountain Community Bancorp and its banking division, Panhandle State Bank, announce the election of Ford Elsaesser to the position of chairman of the board of directors.

Elsaesser’s election to the post will be effective immediately following the 2013 annual shareholders meeting, scheduled for April 24. Elsaesser succeeds Jack Parker, who has served as the institution’s chairman since 1995. Parker will continue to hold a director’s seat on the board.

Elsaesser has been an IMCB director since 1992.

“The need for community banks is clear and growing,” said Elsaesser. “I’m proud of the way Panhandle State Bank, and its divisions of Intermountain Community Bank and Magic Valley Bank, serve our region. We’ve shown that we can be nimble, efficient and supremely effective, and perhaps more importantly, that we are second-to-none in the way our people serve our communities.”

Elsaesser has enjoyed a long and prestigious career in the law, currently serving as senior partner in the Sandpoint firm of Elsaesser Jarzabek Anderson Elliott & Macdonald, Chtd. He regularly teaches at St. John’s University School of Law as well as at the University of Idaho College of Law, which recently awarded him its Order of Legal Merit.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Elsaesser currently serves as chairman of Bonner General Hospital and was recently nominated by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter to his fourth term as chairman of the Pend Oreille Basin Commission. Elsaesser previously served as chairman of the Bonner County School Board and as chairman of the Bonner County Airport Advisory Board.

Elsaesser and his wife, Jean, have been residents of Priest River for 36 years.

IMCB is headquartered in Sandpoint and operates as four separate divisions with 18 banking locations in three states. Its banking subsidiary, Panhandle State Bank, offers financial services through offices in Sandpoint, Ponderay, Bonners Ferry, Priest River, Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Kellogg and Rathdrum in northern Idaho. Intermountain Community Bank, a division of Panhandle State Bank, operates branches in southwest Idaho in Weiser, Fruitland, Payette, Nampa and Caldwell as well as in Ontario, Ore.

Intermountain Community Bank Washington, a division of Panhandle State Bank, now has two locations in the Spokane area in Washington. Magic Valley Bank, a division of Panhandle State Bank, operates branches in Twin Falls and Gooding.