As we celebrate the third successful year-end of our young firm, we want to thank our loyal clients who have helped us create a boutique consulting firm where we love what we do and are blessed to be able to make a living doing it.  We also want to thank our network of incredible friends around the nation at banking schools, state banking associations, technology providers, consulting firms, CPA firms, law firms, and other organizations. We value these relationships, old and new.

Special thanks to the outstanding and dedicated Sawyers & Jacobs team members who travel and work hard to serve our clients year-round with their winning, helpful attitudes.  Great people make a firm, not the logo on the letterhead, and we're fortunate to have a fine team who cares greatly about their work and their clients.

As we close out 2011 and prepare for an exciting and eventful 2012, we present the following firm highlights:

• Year-end 2011 marks our third consecutive profitable year-end and we end the year as a debt-free firm. 
• We continued to grow organically and diversify our client base.  We now have clients in 11 states and we remain focused on serving only community-based financial institutions.
• In keeping with our conservative business plan, which calls for a diversified client base, no single client represents more than five percent of our annual revenue.
• In addition to continuing our annual events, Bank Tech University and Bank Tech Summit (in conjunction with our friends at the Barret Graduate School of Banking), we had speaking engagements with organizations  in Arkansas, Florida, Ilinois, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.  See the sidebar for our 2012 events scheduled thus far. 
• As we begin a new year, look for the early January release of our annual Top Ten Trends Impacting Bank Technology. This marks our eighth year contributing to the William Mills publication, Bankers as Buyers. 
• Jimmy Sawyers entered his 12^th year on the faculty of the Barret Graduate School of Banking and his 9^th year on the faculty of The Southeastern School of Banking.  In 2011, he began his first year on the faculty of the Virginia Bankers School of Bank Management, and 2012 will mark his first year with the Mississippi School of Banking.  We are honored to be a small part of these fine banking schools that prepare banking's future leaders.
• We have added new team members to increase our responsiveness and capabilities.  Accordingly, we have begun negotiations to expand our current office. 
• In 2012, we will begin offering a 401K plan (with matching) to our team members and we will continue to pay 100% of our team members' medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums as we have since our inception.

We believe 2012 holds great promise for our clients, our friends, and our firm as the economy improves and we all welcome the recovery with renewed trust and confidence.

Technology & Operations Conference

Memphis, Tennessee

July 17-22, 2012

The Southeastern School of Banking

Vanderbilt University

Nashville, Tennessee

July 29-August 3, 2012

Virgina Bankers School of Bank Management

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, Virginia