New Small Bank Leader Goes From High Desert to K Street

Rebeca Romero Rainey has known only one employer since graduating college two decades ago: the community bank founded by her grandfather in Taos, N.M., that finances local art galleries, home mortgages, and car purchases.

Next year, Rainey will leave behind Centinel Bank in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and replace Camden Fine as leader of the small bank lobby in Washington, the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA).

Rainey isn’t exactly a newcomer in the nation’s capital: She has served on the FDIC’s advisory committee on community banking and is also a past chair of the ICBA. In that capacity, ...