Lauritzen Corporation - History

History

John Lauritzen decided to go into business for himself, and in 1947 while he was assistant cashier and months before he became an assistant vice president, he sold his house for $14,000, and the site of his future home for $3,000. He used this $17,000 and another $17,000 in borrowed money to purchase a bank in Emerson, Iowa. At the age of 28, he became the youngest bank president in the country.

Five years later, he purchased the First State Bank of Loomis, Nebraska. At the time, he could only afford to purchase 51 percent of the shares. The current owners of the bank told Lauritzen that he would need to buy 100 percent or nothing at all. He then purchased the bank and then quickly re-sold the remaining 49 percent.

After the death of T.L. Davis' in 1955, Lauritzen acquired control of the Washington County Bank, in 1956, the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Bloomfield (1958) and the Burt County State Bank in Tekamah (1961). In 1958, he formed what could be called the forerunner of today's Lauritzen Corporation to oversee his rapidly expanding holdings. Lauritzen then abruptly resigned from the First National to devote all of his energies to his growing chain of small banks.

Lauritzen had been appointed to the board of directors in 1953 and promoted to senior vice president three years after that. Members of First National's management team refused to accept his resignation. Both sides agreed that Lauritzen would work for First National half time, at half pay, and half time for his own string of banks.