When he was 12 years old, 10 years after his father had brought his family to America from Scotland, Jim Hyman and his 10-year-old brother helped their dad with a demanding job.
By John Tredrea, Special Writer
When he was 12 years old, 10 years after his father had brought his family to America from Scotland, Jim Hyman and his 10-year-old brother helped their dad with a demanding job.
”My father brought us to America so we could have a better life,” Mr. Hyman said. “Dad was a plumber, and he could do just about anything in terms of work. Well, our house in Kearny had a basement with a 5-foot ceiling. Dad wanted a 7-foot ceiling. So he dug down there, so we could have that ceiling.
”After school and on weekends, my brother and I helped him. Dad would dig, and my brother and I would fill burlap bags with dirt, then hand those bags out the basement window. It was hard work, and, of course, it was pretty dirty, and it took a fair amount of time to get it done.
”While we were doing this, I said to my mother: ‘Mom, I have got to get an education, because I sure don’t want to do this the rest of my life!’”
Today Mr. Hyman , a resident of Delaware Township in Hunterdon County, is the founding, and current, CEO of the Hopewell Valley Community Bank (HVC Bank). He took that position in the summer of 1998, when he joined now chairman and Hopewell Township resident, Pat Ryan, before the bank opened its first office, in Pennington. That was in 1999.
Since then, the HVC Bank has added two offices in Hopewell Township, plus offices in Princeton, Flemington, Ewing, Hamilton, Ringoes, Skillman, Pittstown and Toms River.
Growing up, his mother would play another important role in his life.
”Two days after I graduated from Kearny High School in 1963, my mother showed me a classified ad in the help-wanted section of the newspaper,” Mr. Hyman recalled with a smile. “The ad was for a mail room clerk in what was then the Carteret Savings Bank in Newark. Mom told me I was going to apply for this job. I did and was hired. I’ve been in banking ever since, except when I was in the military.”
In October 1965, Mr. Hyman went into the Navy. He did a two-year hitch, including a year in Vietnam.
”I came back to the Carteret Bank in 1967 after I was discharged and from that time on I have always been involved in the business of lending money,” he said.
Also in 1967, he began earning, while working for banks, his degree from Rutgers.
”Our bank currently has $300 million in loans,” he said. “And there’s a story behind every one of those loans.”
What he loves about his job is that it’s for a community bank.
”I spent my four years, earlier in my career at a large bank, in the business of lending money and dealing with major corporations, Fortune 1000 companies,” he said. “With them, I generally worked with finance officers, whose basic responsibility is simply to save money. In a community bank like ours, it’s much different. You work one-on-one with people who have dreams of success and reward. That’s a whole different perspective to approach a banking relationship.
”What’s more, in community banking you get to see results of your loans and how they can build and improve people’s lives. Even today on my commute from Delaware Township, I pass properties built back in the 70s, that I did construction inspections on, for the bank I was working with then.
”One of those houses is on Route 518 in Hopewell. We gave a construction loan to a family so they could build it. I still pass that house, which has been there a long time now, and think to myself: ‘People are living there. It’s been their home for a long time.’ It’s a good feeling.”
Bank loans go to businesses as well as homes. One of those loans can be a determining factor in whether a business survives.
”There’s a local, family owned service company,” Mr. Hyman recalled, “that a few years ago really got caught up in the fallout from the 2007 residential mortgage, and general economic, collapse. Their financial strength had been shattered.
”They had carried themselves through four years of recession and couldn’t grow. Some of their own customers had crashed with the economy, as well. The way this unfolded goes to why I love community banking.
”The owner of this business was well-known as someone of personal integrity and professional skill. We got together with them and approved a restructuring of their loans and balance sheet in a way that would allow them to continue to operate. Under this restructuring, we paid off a loan they had with another bank and gave them a line of credit. Today, they’re doing very well and they’re outstanding customers of ours.”
Through a large indoor window on the southern end of his office, Mr. Hyman, whose desk chair faces south, has a direct view of the service area of the HVC Bank’s office on state Route 31 in Pennington.
”The other great thing about community banking is that you get to see your customers,” he said. “I see them when come in and go out. We wave to each other. The door is always open for them to stop in and talk about an issue, or say hello.
”Ours is a very unique bank in terms of the partnerships that exist between the board of directors and the bank and our customers.
”It’s enabled us to help meet the needs of this community and to expand elsewhere to do the same thing.”

