Community Bank’s chief ends his tenure at Community Bank, discusses next plans, which he calls ‘Act III’
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
As of Dec. 31, Mark Tryniski will no longer serve as CEO of Community Bank.
But don’t expect to see him selling everything and moving to Florida.
The SUNY Oswego grad and lifelong CNY resident has big plans for his retirement right here.
Along with his twin brother Michael, Tryniski owns Lakeview Lanes in Fulton. Under Michael’s management, the business has grown, but he wants his banker brother to help him manage the financial side.
“This will be time I’ll really enjoy,” Mark Tryniski said.
He also has 100 rural acres that could use more of his attention. Tryniski also plans to spend more time target shooting, riding his motorcycle, playing golf and spending time with wife, Phyllis, and their four children and four grandchildren. All of his children, parents and siblings are within a 20-minute drive of Oswego County.
“I’m looking forward to ‘Act III’ of the play,” he said. “I’ve tried to stay healthy so I can enjoy my retirement fully.”
Tryniski completed an accounting degree at SUNY Oswego in 1985 and started his career at Price Waterhouse Cooper. After nearly two decades there, he began working at Community Bank.
“If I wanted to advance further at Price Waterhouse Cooper, I’d have to move to Boston or New York City,” he said. “But my whole family still lived in Oswego County.”
He started working at Community Bank in 2003 as CFO, advanced to COO in 2005 and then the next year became CEO.
During his time with Community Bank, “people mattered the most,” he said. “That’s my biggest take-away. You need to attract the right people, not just with the right talent but with the right values. We’ve developed core values we’ve tried to live by. We try to hold each other accountable for integrity, excellence, teamwork and humility.”
He believes that hiring people who embody those ideals is how a business prospers and grows because they serve the customers, community and shareholders.
When he started at Community Bank, it held $3 billion in assets and now it has $15 billion. The bank has also changed in complexity and technology.
“Technology has played an extremely important role in the evolution in all industries and life,” Tryniski said. “We’ve had to embrace technology and invest in it. It’s made business more complex, so you need a group of people with different skills to manage a larger and more complex environment.”
He believes that the CEO sets the tone and culture for an organization, which is why he has tried to focus on Community’s core values and hire others who will do so.
“That’s my most proud accomplishment and what I brought to the organization,” Tryniski said. “It’s also important to have the discipline to focus on being better tomorrow than what we were today. You have to improve your products and how you serve your community by improving the talent in your organization.”
He doesn’t have to toot his own horn about Community Bank’s successes. Just as in 2022, Newsweek and Statista named Community Bank one of America’s Most Trusted Companies based on a survey of 50,000 people based on customer trust, investor trust and employee trust.
Forbes also named Community Bank as one of America’s Best Banks and also World’s Best Banks based on 45,000 customer surveys.
“If the community doesn’t trust us, we don’t have a business,” Tryniski said. “I take a great deal of pride in this on behalf of our 3,000 employees.”
