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Duffey stepping down at PNB

Wants time with grandkids, wife

By JOHN MUNFORD

jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Ron Duffey, the only president and CEO that Peachtree National Bank has ever known, will relinquish his title next year but remain involved as the bank’s chairman of the board.

Duffey, who’s about to turn 64, said he wants to devote more time to his grandchildren, traveling with his wife, Lynn, riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and raising his orchids.

A successor to Duffey’s position of President and CEO will be announced soon, he said. Duffey said Tuesday that he plans to stay on in a part-time capacity after relinquishing his current title Jan. 1.

The retirement is not connected with the current legal dispute with Peachtree City officials over whether the city is responsible for repaying over $1 million in loans to the city’s Development Authority which helped finance the city’s tennis center and amphitheater.

“No, that didn’t have anything to do with it,” Duffey said. “It’s got something to do with being old.”

Duffey, who was recruited from his only other banking position in Newnan, has been the bank’s president and CEO since its inception in 1985. Since then, Peachtree City has experienced tremendous growth, and the bank has had success along with it.

Part of that success has to do with being involved in community efforts, and Duffey has been involved in a number of groups including the board of trustees for Fayette Community Hospital, the board of trustees for Clayton College and State University Foundation and other business groups.

“I take that very seriously,” Duffey said. “I believe we bankers have to give back to the community.”

Duffey is also proud of the bank’s reputation in working with churches in their financing needs, particularly for expansions of their facilities.

In 1993, Duffey was named the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year, an honor which was “really special” to Duffey. That’s because the winners are selected from past winners, he said. And so Duffey has joined past winners each year in sorting through all the nomination forms.

“Those are the people who’ve really built this community,” Duffey said. “I’m proud to have been just a small part of it.”

A native of the Newnan area and graduate of Georgia State College, Duffey was originally planning on a pre-med degree, but he “ran out of money” and took an offer to work at a local bank there to fund the rest of his way through school.

Medicine was abandoned in favor of banking, and Duffey got his Bachelor of Business Administration and Finance degrees from GSU. He also got banking degrees from the Banking School of the South and from the Stonier Graduate School of Banking.

From the start of his career at the First National Bank of Newnan to his only other job at Peachtree National Bank, Duffey said he has had good mentors along the way.

In part to repay that debt, Duffey helped establish a mentoring program in the Fayette County School System, an achievement he is proud of.

“It really was a rewarding experience,” Duffey said. “It’s something that I rank up there among the things I’ve enjoyed doing.”

Duffey, who grew up without the influence of a father, said he had an excellent mother but he was thankful for the input of various men in his life over the years through such programs as the Boy Scouts and youth sports.

“Had it not been for some of the men who came into my life, I don’t know where I’d have gone,” Duffey said.