Groton — Chelsea Groton Bank President and CEO Michael Rauh knows "you can sit there and lament the old days when life was simple and blah blah blah." But he doesn't want to do that.

As in any industry, changes in technology have spurred seismic shifts in banking, but Rauh thinks it's "incredibly exciting" to be living in these times.

"It's sort of like changing the tires on your car while you're still driving," he said.

The Chelsea Groton Bank he has overseen since November 2010 is not the same place it was when it was born as the Groton Savings Bank in 1854.

The bank is recognizing its 165th anniversary in part by celebrating "Feel Good About Your Bank Day" with cake at each branch on July 3 and having employees — plus the Chelsea A. Corn mascot — march in the Groton 4th of July Parade.

Employees gave out 165 $10 gift cards to patrons at 13 local coffee shops, restaurants and other businesses, and the company is donating $165 to the cause of each employee's choice. Rauh said they range from classroom-level organizations to national ones like the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association, with donations made to the latter usually in memory of someone. Many go to animal-related charities, and some to church groups.

Chelsea Groton launched this Acts of Kindness initiative five years ago with a $160-per-person donation for the 160th anniversary, and the bank gave $100 per employee each year since. Rauh said there are about 225 full- and part-time employees across the 15 branches, which span from Niantic to Pawcatuck and north to Sprague.

Marketing Manager Barb Curto added that the company tallied up more than 9,200 employee volunteer hours last year.

Starting in 1979, JoAnn Lynch is one of Chelsea Groton's longest serving employees, and she said the bank's big involvement with the community is what she enjoys most. She spoke with The Day briefly on Thursday just after delivering grant checks.

Rising from teller to customer solutions manager, Lynch remembers when there were lines out the door, but "now with technology everything's quicker."

'We've survived hurricanes, we've survived depressions'

Rauh explained that the bank started with a group of business owners, farmers and merchants, saying, "There were banks that existed, but they were mostly for wealthier people, and this group wanted to create a bank for regular people."

In recent years, Chelsea Groton has grappled with the nationwide trend that people have fewer and fewer reasons to enter a branch, as they can perform the same transactions online or over the phone.

While many banks have responded by closing branches, Rauh said he considered, "If people aren't coming into the banks as much to do transacting, what else are they coming in to do? What if the branch became more of a place where people come to learn and people come to share?"

The result was the renovation of the Center Groton branch in 2017, an "experiment" geared toward offering free financial programming, and toward offering a more comfortable environment for conversations than ones with the barriers of a teller window or oak desk.

The bank works to teach kids how to write checks, senior citizens how to protect themselves from scams, and small business owners how to use QuickBooks and social media.

The goal over the next three years is to get all branches renovated under the same model as the Center Groton branch, Rauh said. The bank hasn't opened a new branch in a long time, but Chelsea Groton could look toward the west and northwest to expand its footprint.

In terms of commercial banking, Chelsea Groton has provided financing for Sift Bake Shop and 85th Day Restaurant Group, which operates Oyster Club, Engine Room and Grass & Bone. Other customers include the repair company New England Propeller, the specialty vehicle manufacturer Callaway Cars, strip malls, hotels and golf courses.

The bank has helped some of the largest employers in the region down to ones so small Rauh jokes, "That's not a mom-and-pop business; that's a mom-or-pop business."

Chelsea Groton has adjusted to increased federal banking regulations over the past few decades by balancing the need for additional auditors with its mission of customer service.

On the state level, Rauh said it's "frustrating to see what's happened and what's not happened," citing Connecticut's perennial deficits, high per-capita spending and pension costs.

He said the problem with "kicking the can down the road ... is cans don't accumulate; it's really pushing a snowball down the hill."

Chelsea Groton just started a project that involves working with the Norwich Historical Society and New London County Historical Society to find the stories of the bank's founders.

"We survived two World Wars, we survived a Civil War," Rauh said. "We've survived hurricanes, we've survived depressions, so we're really looking at: What are the stories of people in businesses during those times of turmoil when the bank helped them?"

e.moser@theday.com