Irwin's Bank.

• Author: BECK, BILL

Founded in 1871, it's now part of the diversified Columbus-based Irwin Financial Corp., one of the nation's top-performing bank-holding companies.

Irwin Financial Corp.'s history dates to the post-Civil War era. But in the past decade, the Columbus-based financial institution that started in 1871 as Irwin's Bank has quietly grown to a company with more than $2 billion in assets. Its subsidiaries offer banking, mortgage finance, home-equity loans, business leasing and venture capital, nationwide.

William I. Miller, in the fifth generation of the founding family, purchased ownership rights from other family members in 1990 and became chairman. At the time, the bank-holding company had revenues of $43 million, net income of $4.6 million, and 700 employees and offices in 11 states.

Ten years later, revenues had grown to almost $300 million, net income to $35.7 million, and the company employed 2,500 people in offices in all 50 states and Canada.

"In 1990, we had two principal lines," says Will Miller, "and they were roughly equal size. We had the Irwin Union Bank, our historical roots, and we had the Irwin Mortgage Co., which we had purchased in 1981. We had smaller activity in the Irwin Union Investment Services, which did CD brokerage on a regional basis east of the Mississippi. Finally, we were winding down a generalized venture-capital business."

Although Miller was familiar with the bank and mortgage side of the business, his direct association with the company only dated back to 1985 when he became a board member of Irwin Union Corp., the holding company. At the time, he was president of Irwin Management Co., a non-affiliated family investment concern.

Will Miller's business background had been diverse prior to buying out family members' shares of Irwin Financial. A Yale graduate with a degree in English, he earned an MBA from Stanford. He worked as an assembly-line foreman in a Cummins Engine Co. diesel plant in South Carolina, and served a stint as an associate in the New York venture-capital firm of E.M. Warburg Pincus & Co.

How did Will Miller and Irwin Financial Corp. manage to increase revenues nearly seven times and earnings by a factor of almost eight in the past decade? The simple answer is perhaps tied to the company's roots. Will Miller and Irwin Financial still exhibit the visionary tendencies of earlier generations of Irwins and Millers. They also pay attention to the financial details.

Will Miller is perhaps proudest of the holding company's financial performance. In 2000...