Bruce Stutts

Bio:

Bruce Stutts started life with a career military family (Army) in Fort Devens MA during 1962. They moved frequently, until his father’s unlawful capture by the North Korean Communists in a border incident concocted by the communists. It involved moving the border markers to enable the communists to shoot down Captain Ben Stutts’ helicopter monitoring the border for South Korea. After over a year’s negotiations, Captain Stutts was released, but subsequently was killed in a plane crash flying out of Redstone Arsenal during the Cold War. Bruce was thus instilled with a great love for his country and the price of freedom at an early age.

Mary Belle Walker Stutts moved her young family of 4 (Bruce is the youngest of three sons) back to the family farm in Florence Alabama, where Bruce was raised until he graduated from Coffee High School in 1980 and went off to college. Farm life prepared Bruce for hard work and self-reliance in order to get things done.

Graduating with Honors from the University of Alabama in Corporate Finance and Investments, Bruce’s professional journey began in the Management Training Program with Compass Bank in 1984. Along the way he picked up a Master’s in Finance. Successfully completing the Commercial Loan Training Program, the road less traveled took him Ft Payne, Alabama as a commercial lender. He gained valuable bank branch management knowledge. 

In 1991, came another fork in the road so he took it. The 1990’s were a challenging time for financial institutions in Texas & Florida, which created an opportunity for Compass Bank, with Bank Acquisitions due diligence to acquire failed or failing banks. Bruce learned much from reading the file histories of thousands of defaulters (as well as survivors). To see actual examples was better than any classroom education could hope to provide. It instilled in him the fundamentals of sound financial practices which has been the foundation of his free-market capitalist philosophy. 

Bruce reviewed commercial real estate (CRE) exposures as well as commercial & industrial (C&I) public & private company credits. Additionally, he led the review of Capital Markets, including the Investment Portfolio and Financial Derivatives. This cultivated a knack for understanding the value of financial assets and the underlying businesses. 

Recall, in the 1990’s, Alabama was still home to five super-regional banks. All of them were prime takeover targets. The future for banking employment seemed risky. This became clear to him when a stockholder proxy contest at Compass Bank (later BBVA) occurred. So, in 1996 he left banking to pursue outside interests using his financial, skills and asset valuation ability. Bruce also obtained a real estate license to diversify & supplement cash flow. The timing turned out to be providential. It was an exciting time intellectually and professionally. 

Over the course of about ten years, Bruce enjoyed the creative freedom of an independent private Portfolio Manager. He also found it personally fulfilling to serve as a college instructor for Huntingdon College Finance & Investment night classes. This period was a tremendous learning experience and allowed him the freedom to travel while working on a computer laptop. Circumstances changed around the same time banking M&A activity settled down. Life had others plans, so he found himself at another fork in the road and took it. Bruce got married and a year later had his first child. So, he and his wife began to contemplate a career move better suited for a family situation. 

In 2007, Bruce joined the Regions corporate banking team. They say timing is everything, the coming economic meltdown brough new unique challenges. As fortune would have it, this evolved into a promotional opportunity on the Credit Risk Analytics team in 2010. Bruce’s vital project was to lead the design of a C&I Risk Rating Model – partnering with Quantitative Analytics. The project involved a design committee made up of top credit associates. This helped Regions avoid financial disaster by appeasing the Federal regulators and restoring confidence in Regions commercial portfolio risk evaluations. 

By 2014, the Regions Bank commercial risk rating process team had completed a more than a dozen risk rating models & tools for various lines of business. These newly deployed wholesale credit risk rating scorecards proved to have high predictive power. During development of the tools, Bruce would produce guidance materials and train associates to use the new tools. After the Risk Management team developed a complete suite of scorecards, the C&I Senior Subject Matter Expert role (with design no longer critical), evolved into primarily enhancing existing models, supplying guidance materials, overseeing quality control, solving problems, and answering user questions. 

Regions Bank’s advanced risk rating models along with consistent sound methodologies were indispensable for a healthy credit infrastructure and culture that achieved re-attainment of the investment grade rating. This critical public rating was downgraded in 2009 by Moody’s and S&P. The entire Risk Management team at Regions deserves a great deal of the credit – for restoration of the Investment Grade credit rating- (see Moody’s and S&P reports circa 2015). 

Regions’ credit metrics were in great shape. It was time for another career move. When he came to another fork in the road, he took it (again), continuing his career at BBVA (now PNC). PNC bought BBVA in June 2021and began immediately to drastically reduce staff in Birmingham. In December 2021, Bruce became self-reliant once again as his position with PNC was eliminated. Currently, Bruce is pursuing business opportunities while serving his community with volunteer projects, many with his church (Church if the Highlands).

As a life -long lover of challenges & learning, Bruce is looking forward to continuing to add value for his community or many years to come! Bruce accepted the challenge to run against a previously unopposed candidate because he believes citizens deserve choices and their freedom depends upon who they vote for in elections. It should not be effectively limited to just the choices crammed down their throats by some Republican or Democrat party leader.

If you agree that voters deserve more choices and you value individual freedom, please consider using your vote to send a message. Vote Libertarian.

Bruce will be honored if you vote for him as Alabama State House of Representative for District 48. He pledges to do what is right, protect personal freedoms, reduce taxes when possible, and support smaller government. Thank you for your consideration and support.

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