Banker comes home

Once you've lived in Southwest Florida, it's hard to stay away too long.

That's certainly true for Harlan Parrish, who led Colonial Bank's expansion into Southwest Florida during the real estate boom years of the last decade. Parrish was recently appointed Bonita Springs-Estero area president and executive vice president of FineMark National Bank & Trust.

Parrish left the area to run Aliant Bank in Birmingham, Ala., part of Largo-based USAmeribank, after regulators shut down Colonial in 2009. Parrish is well known in the Fort Myers-Naples area. Besides being a high-profile banker, he was active in numerous community groups before he left in 2010. That included chairing the United Way annual campaign and the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools. “I love education and that's one of my passions,” Parrish says.