I started my banking career in 1993 with PriMerit Bank, a local/regional community bank in Las Vegas, Nevada. PriMerit Bank was purchased by Norwest Bank in 1996 and later merged with Wells Fargo Bank in 2000. After the merger with Wells Fargo Bank, I moved over to Desert Community Bank as Vice President of Commercial Lending. At the time, Desert Community Bank was a new start-up de novo Bank.  In 2001, I took over as Chief Credit Officer/Executive Vice President at Desert Community Bank (a position I held until November of 2005).  As Chief Credit Officer and EVP of Desert Community Bank, the bank reached its initial profitability and at one point, received the highest level of CAMEL ratings provided by the FDIC.

In November of 2005, I left Desert Community Bank to venture out and organize a new state-chartered FDIC institution (de novo), 1st Commerce Bank, which opened in October 2006. I was the first African American Bank President in the State of Nevada and was one of the youngest bank presidents in the country.  In 2011, after the devastating impact of the Great Recession on small community banks across the country, my board of directors and I approved a merger of 1st Commerce Bank with an affiliate institution.  After a successful 20-year career, in 2012, I left banking and transitioned into academia with the purpose of sharing my knowledge and experience, conducting research, and mentoring the next generation of scholars and practitioners in the area of community and public finance.