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In his day job, Tony Schwallie is an executive at Republic  Bank, where he oversees leading a host of banking centers with defined growth objectives in the competitive financial services industry. But he still finds time in his busy life to pursue another passion – as a board member for Family & Children’s Place.

Family & Children’s Place is the leading agency in Louisville delivering preventive and corrective solutions through six program areas – Child & Family Services, Child Advocacy Center, Family & School Services, Family Stabilization Program, HANDS and the PAL Initiative –to the complex issues surrounding children who have been witness or subject to violence, neglect and abuse.

His path was circuitous – he grew up on a farm in Southern Indiana and has worked in Cincinnati, Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, and North Carolina – and fortuitous.

“My life’s journey led me to Louisville,” he says, and his experience with other boards led him to Family & Children’s Place.

“Culture and fit are important for me,” says Schwallie. “There’s a feeling you get from people who are truly committed to the service of an organization.  That’s what I was looking for in researching boards to possibly join, and it’s what I found at Family & Children’s Place,” he says.

There’s no difference, he says, between the agency mission and its execution. “It’s clear in who’s receiving service, who’s being taken care of, the safety net we provide. And it’s clear in the difference I get to see made in the lives of children and families every day.”

It’s not incidental, he says. “It’s deliberate.” And it’s important work, he adds. “For too many, there would be nowhere for them to turn if there were no Family & Children’s Place.”