{"id":132794,"date":"2026-01-26T23:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T23:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/132794\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T23:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T23:31:18","slug":"the-mentor-resident-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/132794\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mentor \u2013 Resident News"},"content":{"rendered":"

20 Really Good People<\/p>\n

A Mentor at Heart, A Leader in Practice<\/p>\n

In his first year as CEO, Sam Inman has blended service, stability and humility \u2013 proving leadership is strongest when rooted in community.<\/p>\n

More than a year into his role as president and CEO of Community First Credit Union, Sam Inman remains unmistakably grounded. The corner office has not changed his perspective; if anything, it has sharpened it. For Inman, leadership is still an act of service, something he learned long before the titles, the decision-making authority, or the billion-dollar balance sheets, and long before he joined the credit union\u2019s ranks more than 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

Inman\u2019s story began on Jacksonville\u2019s Northside, where he grew up as a Little in Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Florida. The mentoring relationship he formed with his Big Brother, Bill Gowen and Gowen\u2019s wife, Mary Lou, helped change the trajectory of his life, giving him the steady presence and encouragement he needed. Years later, he returned as a Big Brother in high school; later still, he was invited to serve on the board of directors, completing a full-circle journey that continues to shape how he leads today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think part of my legacy is volunteerism,\u201d he shared, reflecting on the mentors for whom he is grateful. \u201cI had some of the most engaging mentors in my life, one through Big Brothers, Big Sisters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SamSam Inman with nephew Hudson at Kilwins 5k presented by Community First<\/p>\n

Inman recalls one mentor in particular, an architect, whose influence left a lasting imprint.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe allowed me to see something greater than where you are today,\u201d said Inman. \u201cHe took me down to Metropolitan Park\u2026 Hanna Park, and they were nothing, nothing but sketches on paper that he was drawing. He allowed me to see a transposition of a future vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was only 11 at the time, but the moment endures.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow it planted a seed in me that said, \u2018Despite where you are today, there\u2019s a greater vision and future for your life,\u2019\u201d Inman said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t words that he spoke, but actions he took.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another early influence came from his eighth-grade teacher, Barbara Lahnen, who gifted him his first parakeet, hatched in her home. Her husband, Bill, was a CPA and introduced Inman to the world of accounting, sparking a curiosity that would shape his path. Inman graduated from UNF in 1988, later receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award; in 2025, he was honored again as Alumni of the Year.<\/p>\n

These childhood experiences, coupled with the values instilled in him by his mother and summers spent working on his grandparents\u2019 farm in southeast Georgia, shaped who he is today and that appreciation for guidance and opportunity has defined Community First\u2019s direction under his leadership. With more than a year as CEO behind him, Inman has emphasized steady, member-first growth while reinforcing core values of accessibility, community investment and financial empowerment. Today, Community First serves more than 187,000 members with 24 branches and 450 employees, remaining Downtown Jacksonville\u2019s longest continually operating financial institution.<\/p>\n

\"RibbonRibbon Cutting of new Community First Branch in Callahan, FL<\/p>\n

Inman\u2019s journey began in 1990 as assistant accounting manager before he became the credit union\u2019s first internal auditor. He later moved into the CFO role, then CRO and now CEO. He helped guide Community First\u2019s expansion from $156 million to $3 billion in assets, strengthened risk management and grew the retail investment services program to more than 5,000 clients and $400 million in assets under management.<\/p>\n

Outside the office, Inman invests deeply in nonprofits, serving as chair of the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida. He is also a board member for the UNF Foundation, WJCT Public Media, the Jacksonville Public Education Fund (JPEF) and the Community First Cares Foundation.<\/p>\n

For Inman, the story hasn\u2019t changed. Leadership is still about believing in others, because someone once believed in him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20 Really Good People A Mentor at Heart, A Leader in Practice In his first year as CEO,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-132794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}