Meet the Directors: Kyle Arganbright

Kyle Arganbright is a fifth-generation resident of Valentine, Nebraska, where he co-founded Sandhills State Bank and serves as president of the institution.

Sandhills’ slogan, “This is our home. This is your bank.” holds deep meaning for Arganbright, who joined the Kansas City Fed’s Omaha Branch Board of Directors this year. After leaving Valentine and starting his career, he returned to his hometown and has served in numerous public service and business leadership roles in Valentine and across Nebraska.

Arganbright has served 12 years on the Valentine City Council, including 10 as mayor. He also co-founded Bolo Beer Co. in Valentine and is a partner in The Dam Ranch, a family-owned commercial cow-calf ranching operation in the area. Sandhills State Bank, named for the region of north-central Nebraska where Valentine sits, was founded in 2010.

“The purpose was to provide local capital to the greater Sandhills in order to protect our way of life and facilitate growth of our people, our industries and our communities,” Arganbright said, noting that over previous years, bank consolidation had “changed the way banking was done out here. We wanted to make banking local again.”

Arganbright represents rural Nebraska on several statewide boards, including the Board of Directors of the Platte Institute for Economic Research, the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and the Aksarben Foundation.

As a Reserve Bank director, Arganbright can share timely economic insight gained from being part of a ranching family and from serving ranchers and agricultural producers as a banker.

“I think it’s important for people to understand how a lot of our food is produced in this country,” Arganbright said. “We’re an agrarian society at the core, and the fact that we serve the agricultural industry and its communities every day has given me some pretty good perspective that I hope to contribute to the Federal Reserve.”

Because the Sandhills might not always sit at the top of general conversations about the economy, the chance to bring forward informed viewpoints from that part of the Tenth District made the Omaha Branch Board role appealing for Arganbright.

“The Federal Reserve is a very important piece of our economy,” he said. “For them to be able get input from a part of the country that’s pretty remote and sometimes maybe feels a little overlooked, I viewed it a great opportunity.”

Learning more about the broader regional economy is another important aspect.

“I hope to understand at a deeper level how the economies in this region function,” Arganbright explained. “Just being able to be around some other like-minded people who are in different geographies and different industries will add value to my region and the bank.”

Learn more about Mr. Arganbright here.