Working with a savvy board and the proceeds of a $10 million offering, CEO Paul Rodeno expects to grow Security Business Bank’s asset base to the neighborhood of $50 million this year. The bank opened its doors Sept. 30 at 701 B St., becoming the first new Downtown-based lender in nearly two decades.

Rodeno’s board includes longtime Downtown players such as Gordon Carrier and Gail Stoorza-Gill. Rodeno, an SDSU business grad, started his career as a commercial lending officer for First Interstate Bank. In 1977, he met his future wife at FIB, in what is now a nightclub called 4th & B.

Like many San Diegans, Rodeno eventually faced a choice of moving to Los Angeles or figuring out how to grow with San Diego. He settled in at Encinitas-based San Dieguito National Bank in 1987, but bigger fish had entered the San Diego banking aquarium.

By 1995, an investment group headed up by Robert Keller acquired San Dieguito and merged it with Tustin-based Eldorado Bank and Huntington Beach-based Liberty National Bank. The merged banks were called Eldorado and Rodeno was named chief administrative officer. By 1997, he was supervising a $1 billion, 16-branch operation while devising strategy for the holding company.

In 2001, Zions Bancorp bought the lender, folding it into California Bank & Trust. Rodeno could have stayed on, but decided to seize the opportunity to run his own shop. “I thought the bank was necessary because of changes in the marketplace, and the opportunity put together a bank with local ownership, board management and decision making,” he says. “I wanted to do something entrepreneurial. It was a dream, I guess.”

His old boss, Keller, is chair of the new bank and the pair maintain a mentor and protégé relationship.

Rodeno says San Diego’s business base of companies with fewer than 15 employees represents a large “sweet spot” for the bank. While Security’s unsecured loan limit is about $1 million, Rodeno has relationships with other banks to do larger deals.

Instead of favoring one industry over another, Rodeno is “a firm believer that there are opportunities in different industries. For example, some people shy away from restaurants but there are some great restaurants that I’d like to have as clients.”

Rodeno calls San Diego’s diverse economy a blessing in tough national times, but he worries about California. “With the state economy, I’m concerned — you saw that Buck Knives is leaving — about the effect that’s going to have. I’m concerned we’re into the mode we had in the late ’80s and early ’90s that companies are leaving (California) because they can’t afford to do business.”

Businesses looking to grow in tough climates may not have the track record that excites big banks, and Rodeno says that’s why community banks are key to economic development. “With credit scoring, if you don’t measure up they throw you out,” Rodeno says. “(But) loan decisions are more than a matrix of scored items. It’s not a computer-oriented decision, it’s a human decision. Personal ethics, the way you do business, can’t really be scored. The history of a relationship can’t be scored. In business today, ethics are becoming a more prominent issue, and how do you quantify that?”