Challenge: Building for the future
When Morton Community Bank, a privately owned financial institution in Central Illinois, decided to elevate its trust and wealth management operations, leadership sought a technology partner that shared its vision for growth, client care, and service-based values.
The existing legacy system that the bank was using wasn’t built for user experience, according to 
Darrin Autry, President of Trust and Wealth Management at Morton. Instead, it was built for survival. When the bank made the decision to invest more in the trust and wealth management business, Autry knew the system had to change, too.
“What we had was a bottom-of-the-barrel offering,” Autry said. “It wasn’t a fair comparison to Cheetah. We wanted a system that was user-friendly, one that made it easy for trust officers to serve clients.”
Solution: A platform built for trust officers
Morton implemented Cheetah in 2018, choosing the platform because its intuitive design philosophy stood out immediately. Autry appreciated that trust officers could get in to Cheetah, manage their accounts, and get back to the front lines quickly, growing the department’s business and taking care of customers.
For a team built on personal relationships and responsiveness, ease-of-use mattered.
Autry is a working manager with his own portfolio of clients to support as well. Autry is not only managing the division, he is working in Cheetah every day.
“I tell new employees, ‘If you can use Google, you can use Cheetah,'” Autry said. “Other systems, you’ve got to have an IT degree to manage. Cheetah is easy to use.”
The dashboard management tools and search functionality allow Morton’s trust team to operate efficiently without needing extensive training. Cheetah makes it easy for trust officers to access quickly client info, portfolio details, transaction records, and more. Simple, web-based workflows also help the team maintain regulatory compliance with ease.
“You click a button, and all the information is right in front of you,” Autry said. “Cheetah was built with the singular purpose of making routine tasks both easier and more visible.”
Results: More time for clients and business development
The result of that simplicity? More time for relationships, less time wrestling with systems.
Cheetah enables Morton’s trust officers to focus on business development and client engagement instead of administrative burdens. By streamlining access to data and automating routine functions, the team spends more time in front of clients and less time behind a desk.
This focus on relationships has paid off. Morton’s trust and wealth management division now manages 3.5 times as many assets as they did before partnering with Cheetah, achieving consistent growth despite a challenging recruitment market and demographic and economic shifts in Central Illinois.
“Our biggest challenge isn’t finding business. It’s hiring enough people to keep up,” Autry said. “Cheetah helps us do more with the staff we have.”
Conclusion
Morton Community Bank is proud of its thriving, client-first trust and wealth management business. At the center of that growth is a simple truth: technology should make it easier to focus on people.
Cheetah’s ease of use, intuitive design, and thoughtful partnership enable Morton to serve clients better, grow faster, and stay agile, all while supporting the human connection that matters in financial services.
Key outcomes
- 3.5X growth in trust and wealth assets under management
- Streamlined daily workflows with intuitive dashboards and search
- Reduced time on operations, more time on client relationships
- Aligned partnership between two privately owned, client-focused organizations
