<p>My name is Maria Ortiz, I'm the co-owner and project manager of Zitro &amp; Roni Real Estate. Our company is a real estate firm focused majorly in renovation and construction at the moment. So, we started out in the commercial space with strip malls and office spaces here in the Allentown area. A couple years ago, we had a really good opportunity to start with our first residential multi-family project which was the renovation of 12 apartment units in Hazleton. Since then, we've gotten a lot of really great opportunities that require a little bit more time and resources. So we're currently working on two apartment buildings in the Hazleton area and these are all going to be brand new apartments. With our projects we have been able to employ a lot of vendors and contractors in our local community and through working with these projects our goal is to revitalize a lot of these overlooked spaces. New Tripoli Bank was able to gift us with trust and confidence since the beginning of our relationship. As we started to grow and expand outside the Lehigh Valley area, we were able to keep this trust and confidence even when we expanded beyond the local area they cover and move into Hazleton. Working with New Tripoli Bank and our lender Robert Kern has been great. I can recall our most recent transaction&mdash;it was a really big investment for us and working with the seller got a little bit difficult and New Tripoli Bank and Bob Kern were able to step in to offer the seller the reassurance they needed to help us move along with the deal and, you know, settle as planned. We wanted to work with a bank that saw us as more than just one more in a big list of clients and with New Tripoli Bank we were able to get this from the beginning of our relationship up until, you know, our most recent transaction. And with New Tripoli Bank we truly felt seen and understood which is something that in previous relationships with other Banks we were not really getting. So if you're looking to work with a bank that truly sees you and your business as a key part of your local community we definitely recommend working with New Tripoli. [Music]</p>

<p>Hello, I'm Kevin Campbell. I'm president and CEO of Barry Isset &amp; Associates. We are a multi-discipline engineering firm headquartered in the Lehigh Valley. We have nine offices throughout the eastern half of Pennsylvania. As a multi-discipline engineering firm, we have about 10 different disciplines that we provide, from survey, geotechnical engineering, environmental through civil, land development, structural engineering, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, we also do forensic engineering wastewater traffic and our biggest group in the company is now our field services group, which currently numbers about 80 people. At Barry Isset &amp; Associates, we pride ourselves on being part of the community. We get to see our work every day as we drive around throughout the Lehigh Valley: Dorney Park, Blue Mountain Ski Area, Air Products, Olympus, the ArtsQuest Center, and many projects at Deca Battery. Similar to New Tripoli Bank, we consider ourselves a community engineering firm. We're involved with the volunteer center, for several years we've done projects at the Salvation Army, we do clean up with the conservation district. Every project that we are involved in improves the quality of life. We're now celebrating our 45th year in business and for the first time in 45 years we own a building! It would not have been possible without New Tripoli Bank. When we needed to purchase the land, we reached out to John Hemak and John Hayes a New Tripoli Bank and we arranged to have a loan to purchase the land. About four or five years later, when it came time to start building the building, we reached out at that time to several banks, but in the end New Tripoli Bank was the most aggressive and most flexible and we really appreciate the confidence and trust that they had in us to loan us the money to build this beautiful building. New Tripoli Bank prides themselves on being a community bank; they're not some huge commercial national bank. When you reach out to them, you sit down, you have a very friendly conversation and the whole process is very streamlined.</p>

<p>My name is Laurie Wuchter, my husband Dan and I own the business of the Allentown Fairground Farmers Market. We have over 60 vendors here at the farmers market, bringing mom and pop businesses here to the local area. We're open every week, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Allentown. This has been here since 1953. I started here in 1994 with a flower stand of all things and met my husband Dan and fell in love and the rest is history. He was one of the first vendors here in the Farmers Market as a fresh poultry business and then one day he decided he was going to do the rotisserie oven, so he sold it to Mr. Bill and he came down an opened Dan's barbecue.</p>
<p>With repairs in the Farmers Market, my husband and I were struggling. A couple years back we had gotten loans in different places and the interest was so high. We met with an amazing gentleman, Robert Kern, that works at New Tripoli Bank. What he did was he gave us a consolidated loan at a great interest rate&mdash;he made it affordable. We told him what we could make the payment at, and he just helped us so much, it was just awful&mdash;we were drowning.</p>
<p>The farmers market is an amazing place to shop, from candy, to crafts, to all the ethnic foods we have in here. The meats, the seafood, produce, everything&mdash;it's an amazing place to shop. We have different businesses here in the farmers market: we've got Stoltzfus Amish Deli, Culinary Experts where you can come in and get prepared meals to go, Baringers Meats, who actually slaughter their own products and bring them in here to the farmers market. You don't have to worry about how long it's been in that case! And we've got Mr. Bills, all his stuffed burgers and stuffed chicken breasts, Southern Delights at the east end of the market, we're very proud of having Mary Ann Donuts here in the farmers market, we have Amish Village Bake Shop, we have Vallos Bakery, just so many great merchants here. You have foods of the Mediterranean, that's here every week making everything from scratch, we have Korean food, Vietnamese, she's an amazing chef from Vietnam, all under one roof.</p>
<p>We pride ourselves in a lot of community activities for local children. We're very involved with community events like basketball tournaments throughout the area and providing them with foods and stuff, but we try to support all the local non-profits, all the people that are looking for donations. We do stuff with Dollars for Scholars to try to promote them to sell gift certificates and give them money back for their different band classes or trips that they're taking. We try to do anything we can with gift certificates and helping people out in the community.</p>
<p>We are not a number at New Tripoli Bank. I just can't express enough how good it is to work with them, because it's not just "go to the website and fill out a form." They're just amazing with their service&mdash;I can call Robert and ask him a question about anything and he always picks up the phone. New Tripoli Bank took a risk on us and they have just really worked with us. They understand the fact that you may need help every once in a while, they will sit down, they will talk to you, they will go over it with you and and work it out if they can. With New Tripoli Bank, they know us&mdash;we're not a number for them.</p>

<p>Hello, I'm Thomas Jankowski, I'm president and one of the principal engineers at Profi-Vision. We're specialized in providing control engineering solutions for Mining and Cement Industries and other applications in North America. So Profi-Vision specializes on designing control systems with machine learning and higher-end controls. We cover a wide variety of applications, we start at the low voltage distribution, electrical engineering, and we program the controls to reduce the carbon footprint and negative effect on the environment. In the early 2000's, Profi-Vision found new customers here in the US that required a move from Germany to the US to satisfy the local needs. We saw the opportunity to open up business here in Lehigh Valley and worked with the local colleges and engineering companies to establish ourselves. This gave us opportunity to work on challenging projects like water treatment to reduce the environmental impact of some of our customers. The water, before it entered rivers or other areas, had to be neutralized, so we use machine learning algorithm to lower the pH value and neutralized it to standards better than the EPA approved. Profi-Vision as a company has the same challenges as any engineering company; we have to train our side with the new technology, bring up to speed the areas that are continuously evolving, so the challenges that we see are the non-acceptance at the beginning of the new technologies with the fears of not understanding. Our customers have to be trained and be brought up to speed to be comfortable with the technology that they're using. So I've been in business for more than 30 years and for me basically dealing with the banks globally was always a challenge. When we started looking to expand and looking for a new building the New Tripoli Bank approached us instantly with not only one but more than one solution. They made us very comfortable in making that decision and telling us how to move from financially one position to next. The bank showed us the possibilities, not only one option but several options, how to approach it and guided us actually through the whole process to achieve what we wanted. And I think for any business owner, especially people that want to open new businesses, talking to New Tripoli Bank gives us a very understandable toolbox. You have a feeling you talk to somebody that tries to put themselves in your shoes. They had the understanding of what we're doing and understanding how to support us financially.</p>

<p>Hi, I'm Chad Balliet and my family and I own South Mountain Cycle &amp; Cafe here in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. We are a bicycle sales and service shop and we have a large retail store. We work on kids bikes, adult bikes, electric bikes, race bikes&mdash;anything with two wheels and a pedal. So, our goal with opening our store was to give people a great place to come and be serviced properly. We can size and fit you properly for a bicycle, give you honest service work, and just give you an experience that you want to do what you love and and be able to go out on your bike and and enjoy it. A couple of customers have come in and making them feel confident at 350 lbs that they can ride a bike and they come in a year later and they've shaken 100 lbs they look great and they're out doing things that they never thought they would do before or people coming back and sharing the pictures after their camping trip with their family. You know what I mean? Like when you're trying to figure out how we can get five bikes in a car, those are the things that I get excited about. We want to be supportive of our community and their needs, whether you're riding a bike for fitness or you're actually using it for your transportation. I would say we got involved with New Tripoli Bank probably in 2017 and at that point our business was at a really critical point of growing and changing. An opportunity presented itself for us to purchase our building and not have to rent anymore. It's hard starting off as a small business and going somewhere and asking for money and New Tripoli was so willing to listen to our business plan and very supportive of us being able to get the proper funds necessary to continue to grow our business. You got to be aligned with the proper people and it's never been a question of whether or not New Tripoli is involved in our community. They're very engaged in our community. So what gave us the idea of having a retail store with a cafe in it was really being able to create community bringing people together. Our business isn't unique to anybody else's small business, we definitely rely on people coming back, making sure that they constantly have a great consistent experience. I would call us facilitators, right? So people want to ride bikes and we get to keep them on their bikes, whether it's doing repair, whether it's getting some adjustments set up, just making sure that they understand all of the different accessories that are available to make their ride more enjoyable. Having our our staff trained that when someone comes in and new products are out, we can educate them on that. Being able to feel comfortable coming in, maybe having a couple extra pounds on you, and to a place where you're not judged, where you can just come out. We'll get you sized up for a bike and keep everybody doing what they love&mdash;riding their bike. I would recommend anybody to New Tripoli Bank. It's like an episode of Cheers&mdash;it's where everybody knows your name. The people know who you are, they know your needs. We have our loan officer come out and visit and just really has an understanding of our business.</p>

<p>Hello, I'm Thomas Jankowski, I'm president and one of the principal engineers at Profi-Vision. We're specialized in providing control engineering solutions for Mining and Cement Industries and other applications in North America. So Profi-Vision specializes on designing control systems with machine learning and higher-end controls. We cover a wide variety of applications, we start at the low voltage distribution, electrical engineering, and we program the controls to reduce the carbon footprint and negative effect on the environment. In the early 2000's, Profi-Vision found new customers here in the US that required a move from Germany to the US to satisfy the local needs. We saw the opportunity to open up business here in Lehigh Valley and worked with the local colleges and engineering companies to establish ourselves. This gave us opportunity to work on challenging projects like water treatment to reduce the environmental impact of some of our customers. The water, before it entered rivers or other areas, had to be neutralized, so we use machine learning algorithm to lower the pH value and neutralized it to standards better than the EPA approved. Profi-Vision as a company has the same challenges as any engineering company; we have to train our side with the new technology, bring up to speed the areas that are continuously evolving, so the challenges that we see are the non-acceptance at the beginning of the new technologies with the fears of not understanding. Our customers have to be trained and be brought up to speed to be comfortable with the technology that they're using. So I've been in business for more than 30 years and for me basically dealing with the banks globally was always a challenge. When we started looking to expand and looking for a new building the New Tripoli Bank approached us instantly with not only one but more than one solution. They made us very comfortable in making that decision and telling us how to move from financially one position to next. The bank showed us the possibilities, not only one option but several options, how to approach it and guided us actually through the whole process to achieve what we wanted. And I think for any business owner, especially people that want to open new businesses, talking to New Tripoli Bank gives us a very understandable toolbox. You have a feeling you talk to somebody that tries to put themselves in your shoes. They had the understanding of what we're doing and understanding how to support us financially.</p>

<p>My name is Jeremy Rex, I&rsquo;m 39 years old, I have lived in the Lehigh Valley my entire life. I grew up on a local farm run by my parents. This house was built by my great grandfather in 1953. When the opportunity presented itself for me to have the option of buying my family&rsquo;s home next to my parents, I took into consideration that I&rsquo;ve been a loyal customer to New Tripoli Bank ever since I was born. Working with the mortgage department at New Tripoli Bank was a very easy process and they worked with me, going through several different options of mortgage to purchase my family house, and keep it in the family for maybe one, two more generations. And it means a lot to me that I had the opportunity to be able to buy this property that was built by my great grandfather.</p>