Bankers reunite to form lending 'dream team'

SARASOTA — The founder and former CEO of Sabal Palm Bank in Sarasota, Brian Hall, has taken an executive position at Gateway Bank of Southwest Florida.

Hall was named executive vice president and director of wealth management at Gateway, a $227.3 million asset bank, according to a release. Hall, who has been in banking for 34 years, will also take on other senior management and business development duties at the bank, where he will work with Gateway President and CEO Shaun Merriman.

Hall had been with Sabal Palm from 2005 until this past August. He previously worked with Merriman in executive roles at SouthTrust Bank in Sarasota. Merriman recruited Hall to SouthTrust, and each banker spent some time running the local operation at different times. “When Brian shared with me he was leaving Sabal Palm, I jumped at the opportunity to have him join us at Gateway Bank,” Merriman says in the statement.

Hall began his banking career with the Star Bank organization in Indiana and Ohio in 1979. The reunion with Merriman is a great fit, says Gateway Bank Chairman Charles Bartlett. “I first worked with both Shaun Merriman and Brian Hall at SouthTrust Bank, and their collective work led to market dominance for SouthTrust,” Bartlett says in the statement. “The phrase 'dream team' is appropriate in describing these two dynamic bankers again working together at Gateway Bank.”