At The Bank of Glen Burnie, the only growth that has ever made sense is the kind that puts more neighbors in front of bankers who actually know their names. Meet the five new team members bringing deep local roots, genuine community investment, and real banking expertise to Anne Arundel County.
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At The Bank of Glen Burnie, we talk a lot about what it means to be a community bank. But community banking isn’t a tagline — it’s a practice. It’s the decision to stay independent when consolidation is easier. It’s the choice to volunteer on a Saturday morning when you could be doing something else. It’s hiring people who already live in the neighborhoods they serve. It’s showing up, consistently, year after year, even when no one is keeping score.
The first quarter of 2026 was a quarter that put all of that on full display. From leadership transitions to geographic expansion to the everyday presence that defines our culture, the first three months of this year reminded us — and we hope reminded you — why community banking still matters, and why BofGB has been doing it for nearly 77 years.
Here’s a closer look at where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and where we’re headed.
Every institution has moments that mark the end of one era and the beginning of another. For BofGB, February 2026 was one of those moments.
After decades of distinguished service, Board Chair Jack Demyan announced his retirement from the Glen Burnie Bancorp Board of Directors. To say that John’s fingerprints are all over this institution would be an understatement. His tenure spanned some of the most transformative years in banking — years marked by rapid technological change, economic turbulence, and an industry that looked almost unrecognizable compared to the one he first joined. Through all of it, John kept BofGB anchored to what matters most: the people we serve, the community we’re part of, and the values we were founded on back in 1949.
We are deeply grateful for John’s leadership, his steadiness, and his unwavering belief in the power of community banking. His legacy is baked into everything we do.
At the same time, we are genuinely excited about what comes next. Jay Baldwin steps into the role of Board Chair with deep Anne Arundel County roots and an equally deep understanding of what this bank means to the community. As President and CEO of Reliable Contracting Company, Inc., Jay has spent his career building things that last — and he brings that same mindset to his role at BofGB. He’s also long been a vocal champion of community banking as an investment in the local economy, having previously noted that when you deposit with BofGB, you’re not just putting money in a bank — you’re investing in the businesses and neighbors around you. That perspective is exactly what this seat calls for, and we couldn’t be more confident in the road ahead.
For nearly 77 years, The Bank of Glen Burnie has been the community bank for northern Anne Arundel County. Familiar faces. Local decision-making. The kind of banking where you call and a person answers.
But as we’ve listened to business owners, entrepreneurs, and residents across the county, one message kept coming through clearly: southern Anne Arundel County needed the same thing. They needed a community banking option that could make lending decisions locally, build real relationships, and treat them as neighbors — not account numbers.
In late March, we answered that call.
We announced plans to open a new Loan Production Office in Annapolis, Maryland — located at 2525 Riva Road, Suite 141 — tentatively scheduled to open mid-April 2026. The office will serve small to medium-sized businesses by appointment and will focus on commercial lending and deposit services for the southern part of the county. It’s not just an expansion of our footprint — it’s a statement about where we believe community banking is needed and what we intend to do about it.
And the person helping lead the charge couldn’t be a better fit.
If you want to understand why we’re so excited about the Annapolis expansion, start with who’s leading it.
John Camden joins The Bank of Glen Burnie as Vice President and Annapolis Market Executive — and his résumé reads like a love letter to Anne Arundel County. A lifelong resident who currently lives in the Manhattan Beach community with his wife and three sons, John brings both professional excellence and genuine community investment to everything he does.
On the professional side, John has been recognized as a Maryland Bankers Association “Next Leader in Banking” honoree, a Leadership Anne Arundel Flagship Graduate, and was named one of Annapolis’s Finest 40 Under 40 by the Maryland Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He is an active member of Annapolis Business Connections, the Touchdown Club of Annapolis, and the Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce.
But it’s what John does off the clock that really tells you who he is. For 17 years, he has volunteered as a youth ice hockey coach with Navy Youth Hockey, and he takes great pride in supporting midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy. This is a person who has spent the better part of two decades giving his time to young people in this community — because that’s just who he is.
“I am excited to join The Bank of Glen Burnie and the Bank’s focus on community values are well aligned with my community-centered approach to business development,” John said. “Growing the Annapolis market will create new growth opportunities and I look forward to being a part of the trajectory that lies ahead as we strive to meet the diverse financial needs of local businesses and to help them build financial success.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Welcome, John. You’re already home.
The headline moments — the leadership announcements, the new office — get the press releases. But community banking lives in the in-between. It’s the branch manager who sponsors a local chamber breakfast. The teller who knows your name before you reach the window. The team that shows up to volunteer on a weekend not because it’s required, but because it’s the right thing to do.
Throughout the first quarter of 2026, our teams continued to show up in exactly those ways. Our branches remain active partners with local chambers of commerce across Anne Arundel County, participating in networking events, business expos, and community roundtables that connect local business owners with the resources and relationships they need to grow. These aren’t passive sponsorships — our bankers are in the room, having real conversations, learning what the business community needs, and bringing those insights back to inform how we serve.
We’ve also maintained our longstanding support for the Glen Burnie Improvement Association, which has been a cornerstone of our hometown since 1908. The GBIA does the unglamorous, essential work of keeping Glen Burnie a place people want to live, work, and raise families — and we’re proud to stand beside them. That partnership extends into spring with an eye toward GBIA’s SpringFest on May 9, a free, family-friendly community celebration at 19 S. Crain Highway that draws local vendors, live music, and families from across the area. If you haven’t been, put it on your calendar.
Our connection to Arundel House of Hope also continued in Q1. Arundel House of Hope provides critical services to some of the county’s most vulnerable residents — people facing homelessness, food insecurity, and other hardships. Supporting organizations like this isn’t ancillary to our mission. It is our mission. A healthy community bank has a responsibility to support a healthy community, and that means more than just writing checks. It means showing up.
Spring has always felt like the right season for BofGB. It’s a time for planting — new relationships, new projects, new possibilities. And this spring, we have plenty to be energized about.
The Annapolis Loan Production Office opens mid-April, bringing community banking to a part of the county that’s been underserved by local institutions. Our team will be in the community at GBIA SpringFest in May, continuing the volunteer work and local engagement that defines our culture. And our bankers will keep doing what they do best: answering the phone, knowing your name, making local decisions, and treating every customer like the neighbor they are.
If you’re a small business owner in southern Anne Arundel County curious about what BofGB can do for you, now is a great time to reach out. If you’re a longtime customer, thank you — genuinely — for choosing to bank local. And if you’re someone who’s never worked with a community bank before and you’re wondering what the difference really is, we’d love to show you.
Because at the end of the day, this is what we do. We build communities — one neighbor and one customer at a time.
Interested in learning more about The Bank of Glen Burnie or scheduling an appointment at our new Annapolis office or any of our branch locations? Visit us at thebankofglenburnie.com or call us at 410-766-3300. We’d love to hear from you.
Every spring, a significant amount of money moves through Anne Arundel County households in the form of federal and state tax refunds. Some of it goes toward bills that have been stacking up since January. Some of it disappears into everyday spending before the direct deposit notification has cleared the lock screen. Some of it gets set aside with good intentions that fade by May. And a small but meaningful portion of it gets put to deliberate, strategic use by people who treat their refund not as a windfall but as a financial tool — one that, handled correctly, can change the shape of their financial life for the rest of the year and beyond.
If you’re in that last group, or if you want to be, this post is for you. And if you’re banking locally in Glen Burnie or anywhere else in Anne Arundel County, you have access to products, relationships, and guidance that can help you make the most of whatever the IRS sends your way this spring.
At The Bank of Glen Burnie, we’ve been helping our neighbors navigate financial decisions since 1949. We’ve seen a lot of tax seasons. We’ve seen people use refunds brilliantly and we’ve seen people lose them to inertia. The difference between the two outcomes almost never comes down to the size of the refund. It comes down to whether the person had a plan before the money arrived.
This is that plan.
Before we talk about what to do with your refund, it’s worth grounding the conversation in reality. The average federal tax refund in the United States typically exceeds $3,000. Maryland state refunds add to that for many filers. For a Maryland family earning a median household income, that combined refund can represent anywhere from four to eight weeks of take-home pay — arriving all at once, in a single deposit, with no restrictions on how it gets used.
That’s a remarkable opportunity. It’s also a remarkably easy opportunity to squander.
Research on consumer behavior consistently shows that lump-sum cash arrivals — bonuses, inheritances, refunds — are spent faster and less intentionally than equivalent amounts earned incrementally through regular paychecks. There’s a psychological phenomenon at work: money that arrives unexpectedly or in unusual form tends to feel less “real” than money earned through routine work. It gets mentally categorized as extra, as bonus, as permission to spend rather than obligation to manage. And so it goes — on home goods, on electronics, on a vacation that felt earned but wasn’t budgeted for, on a hundred small decisions that collectively consume the entire amount before Memorial Day.
The antidote to this pattern isn’t austerity. It’s intention. Having a plan — even a simple one, even an imperfect one — dramatically changes what happens to a lump sum of cash. And the time to make that plan is before the refund arrives, not after.
If there is a single financial priority that should take precedence over every other use of your tax refund, it is this: a fully funded emergency fund.
Financial advisors broadly agree on a target of three to six months of essential living expenses held in a liquid, accessible savings account. For a family in Maryland spending $4,000 a month on mortgage or rent, utilities, groceries, transportation, and essential bills, that means $12,000 to $24,000 sitting in savings — not invested in the market, not locked in a CD, not committed to any purpose other than absorbing the financial shock of whatever goes wrong next.
And something always goes wrong. A water heater fails. A car needs a transmission. A medical bill arrives for a procedure that insurance only partially covered. A spouse loses a job. A child needs something expensive and urgent. Life does not pause for financial convenience, and the households that navigate these disruptions without lasting damage are almost universally the ones that had a reserve waiting when the disruption arrived.
The households that don’t have that reserve face a different set of choices — credit card debt at 20% or higher, personal loans at rates that compound the original problem, or worse, decisions that sacrifice long-term financial stability (retirement savings, home equity, credit scores) to address an immediate crisis that a few thousand dollars in savings would have handled cleanly.
If your emergency fund is empty or underfunded, your tax refund is the single best annual opportunity to fix that. Not because the amount is always sufficient to fully fund the target — it may not be — but because a lump sum deposited intentionally into a dedicated savings account establishes the fund, sets the habit, and creates a foundation that you can build on through the rest of the year.
The Bank of Glen Burnie offers personal savings accounts specifically designed for exactly this purpose — straightforward, accessible, no complexity. Open one at any of our Anne Arundel County branches, deposit your refund, and make a commitment to leave it alone unless a genuine emergency requires otherwise. That commitment, maintained consistently, is worth more than almost any other financial decision you can make.
If your emergency fund is in good shape and you have refund money available beyond that baseline, a Certificate of Deposit is one of the most reliable and underutilized tools available to everyday savers.
The mechanics are simple, and that simplicity is part of the appeal. You deposit a fixed amount for a fixed term — commonly anywhere from six months to five years — and you receive a guaranteed interest rate for the duration of that term. At the end of the term, you receive your original deposit plus the accumulated interest. There is no market risk. There is no complexity. The rate you agree to on day one is the rate you receive at maturity, regardless of what happens to interest rates, the stock market, or the broader economy in the interim.
The tradeoff is liquidity. Unlike a savings account, a CD requires you to leave the money in place for the agreed term. Early withdrawal typically incurs a penalty, usually expressed as a certain number of days of interest. This makes CDs the right tool for money you’re confident you won’t need to access before the term expires — which is exactly the profile of a tax refund that’s surplus to your emergency fund.
If your refund is $2,000 or more and your savings cushion is already adequate, opening a CD with some or all of that amount turns a one-time event into an ongoing return. A 12-month CD opened in March matures in March of the following year — giving you a known, guaranteed payout at the start of the next tax season, which you can then choose to reinvest or deploy toward whatever financial priority has emerged in the intervening year.
The Bank of Glen Burnie offers CD products through our branch locations across Anne Arundel County. Come in and talk to one of our bankers about current rates and terms — the conversation takes fifteen minutes and gives you information you can use to make a concrete decision rather than leaving the money in a checking account where it earns nothing and disappears quietly over the following months.
Here is a financial truth that doesn’t get discussed as often as it should: paying down high-interest debt is almost always the highest guaranteed return available to a household with that debt on its books.
The math is not complicated. If you are carrying a credit card balance at 22% APR — a rate that is common and in many cases low relative to current market rates — every dollar you apply to that balance eliminates future interest charges at 22%. That is a guaranteed 22% return, with no risk, no market exposure, and no complexity. No savings account, no CD, no index fund, no investment product of any kind can offer a guaranteed 22% return. The stock market averages roughly 10% annually over long periods, with significant variance and no guarantees in any given year. Your credit card balance is offering you a guaranteed 22% return every single year you carry it, paid in the form of interest charges you no longer owe.
When framed this way, the decision to pay down high-interest debt with your tax refund is not a sacrifice. It is a financial return that most retail investors would be thrilled to earn.
The practical question for most households is not whether to pay down debt but which debt to prioritize. If you have multiple balances across multiple cards or lenders, there are two common approaches: the avalanche method, which directs payment toward the highest-interest balance first and minimizes total interest paid over time; and the snowball method, which directs payment toward the smallest balance first and generates psychological momentum through quick wins. Both approaches work. The best approach is the one you’ll actually follow consistently.
If your debt picture is complicated — multiple balances, a mix of interest rates, uncertainty about the most efficient path forward — stop by any of our Anne Arundel County branches and talk to one of our bankers. We can help you think through your options, including whether a personal loan at a lower fixed rate might make sense for consolidating existing balances into a single, more manageable payment.
For homeowners in Glen Burnie and the surrounding Anne Arundel County communities, your tax refund exists in the context of an asset that may have grown substantially in value over the past several years. The regional housing market has been strong, and many local homeowners are sitting on significant equity — equity that can be accessed through a Home Equity Line of Credit or a Home Equity Loan to fund improvements, repairs, or other financial priorities at interest rates that are typically far more favorable than credit cards or personal loans.
Your tax refund intersects with your home equity in a few important ways.
First, if you’ve been planning a home improvement project — a kitchen renovation, a roof replacement, a bathroom update, an addition, an HVAC upgrade — spring is the natural season to execute. Contractors emerge from the winter slowdown, materials are available, and the weather cooperates for the range of projects that require exterior access or dry conditions. Getting your financing in place now means you can move when your contractor is ready rather than scrambling for funding after you’ve already committed to a timeline.
A HELOC from The Bank of Glen Burnie gives you access to a credit line based on your home equity, which you can draw from as your project requires rather than taking a lump sum upfront. You pay interest only on what you draw, and the rate is typically far lower than a credit card or personal loan because the line is secured by your home. For renovation projects where costs are variable and timing is uncertain, the flexibility of a HELOC is often more practical than a fixed loan.
Second, if you’re not yet a homeowner but have been working toward a down payment, your tax refund could be the deposit that moves your timeline meaningfully forward. The spring market is competitive in Anne Arundel County — inventory is limited, buyer demand is consistent, and the homes that come to market in March and April tend to move quickly. Being financially prepared — with a down payment funded, a pre-approval in hand, and a clear picture of what you can afford — is the difference between competing effectively and watching opportunities go to buyers who were ready when you weren’t.
The Bank of Glen Burnie offers mortgage products for first-time buyers and existing homeowners, and our team can walk you through what your numbers look like and what timeline is realistic given your current savings position. That conversation is free, carries no obligation, and gives you a concrete picture of where you stand — which is always better than an approximate picture based on general assumptions.
If you have children, your tax refund represents an opportunity that goes beyond your own financial situation. Time is the most valuable input in any savings or investment equation, and children have more of it than anyone. Money deposited in a savings account for a ten-year-old has a decade or more to grow before college. Money set aside for a newborn has eighteen years.
The specific vehicle matters less than the habit and the timeline. A basic savings account opened in a child’s name, funded with a portion of your tax refund, and added to periodically over subsequent years builds both a financial balance and a financial education. Children who watch a savings account grow — who understand that money accumulates over time when it’s protected and added to — develop a relationship with saving that shapes their financial behavior for life.
This doesn’t require a large initial deposit. Starting with $500 from your refund and adding $25 or $50 per month creates meaningful accumulation over years or decades. What it requires is starting — because the one input that can’t be recovered once it’s gone is time, and every year you wait to begin is a year of compounding that your child’s future self doesn’t get back.
The Bank of Glen Burnie can help you open a savings account for your child at any of our Anne Arundel County locations. It’s a straightforward process that takes less time than most people expect, and the conversation about what you’re building and why is one worth having in front of your kids.
Everything described above is straightforward in theory. The practical challenge is timing.
Research on financial decision-making shows that the window of intentionality around a lump-sum cash arrival is narrow. In the days immediately following a direct deposit or check, the money feels new and the recipient feels motivated to do something purposeful with it. That motivation fades quickly. Within a week or two, the money has begun to blend into the general pool of available funds, and the decisions about it become incrementally less deliberate — a purchase here, a transfer there, a dinner out because the balance looked comfortable.
The way to defeat this pattern is to make your plan before the money arrives and execute it within 24 to 48 hours of the deposit hitting your account. Decide now, before you’ve filed, before you know the exact amount, what you’re going to do with your refund. Savings account, CD, debt paydown, mortgage down payment, child’s savings — whatever the priority is, name it, decide the amount, and be ready to act the moment the funds clear.
If you want to give yourself permission to spend a portion of your refund on something that feels good — a weekend away, a piece of furniture you’ve been putting off, a meal at a restaurant your family has been talking about — build that into the plan. Allocating 10 or 15 percent of your refund as discretionary spending and directing the rest with intention is a perfectly reasonable approach. What doesn’t work is treating the entire amount as discretionary and hoping that financial responsibility will reassert itself before the balance reaches zero.
You can open a high-yield savings account at any of several national online banks. You can buy a CD through a brokerage. You can apply for a personal loan through an app on your phone. The financial products themselves are not unique to community banks.
What is unique is the relationship, and in the context of a decision like how to allocate your tax refund, the relationship matters more than people typically expect.
When you walk into a branch of The Bank of Glen Burnie, you’re not navigating a call center queue or explaining your situation from scratch to a representative who has your account number but no context about your life. You’re talking to a banker in Anne Arundel County who works in the same community where you live, who understands the local housing market, local employment conditions, and local economic context because they’re living in the same environment you are. That context changes the quality of the conversation and the relevance of the guidance.
It also changes what happens when your circumstances change. A national online bank processes your account. A local community bank manages your relationship. When you have a question, a problem, or a decision that doesn’t fit neatly into an online FAQ, the difference between those two experiences is the difference between a frustrating hold queue and a ten-minute conversation with someone who knows your name and your history.
The Bank of Glen Burnie has been part of this community since 1949 — through recessions, through housing cycles, through every financial season Anne Arundel County has experienced in the past seven decades. The people who work here live here. The deposits made here fund loans to local homeowners, local small businesses, and local families navigating the same financial decisions you’re navigating. Banking locally is not just a sentimental choice. It is a choice that keeps money in the community, supports local economic health, and gives you access to a kind of personalized service that the national institutions — despite their technology and their marketing budgets — simply cannot replicate at scale.
Tax season comes once a year. The refund that arrives in the next few weeks is a finite, one-time opportunity to do something meaningful for your financial future. It can fund the emergency reserve you’ve been meaning to build. It can lock in a guaranteed return through a CD. It can eliminate high-interest debt that’s been costing you every month. It can move your home ownership timeline forward. It can start something lasting for your children.
Or it can disappear — not through any single bad decision, but through the accumulated weight of inattention and the absence of a plan.
The Bank of Glen Burnie is ready to help you make the most of this season. Stop by any of our Anne Arundel County branch locations and talk to one of our bankers about what makes the most sense for your situation. There’s no pressure, no obligation, and no requirement to have everything figured out before you walk in. That’s what we’re here for.
The Bank of Glen Burnie. Your neighborhood is our neighborhood. Since 1949.
Money is never just money.
It’s momentum.
When businesses in Glen Burnie choose to bank locally, their deposits don’t disappear into a national balance sheet. They stay closer to home—and that proximity changes everything.
Deposits Don’t Sit Still. They Move.
Every dollar deposited into a local financial institution has a job to do. It gets lent to a nearby business. It helps finance a new storefront, a delivery van, a payroll expansion, or a renovation that creates jobs.
That movement is what economists call the velocity of money—how often a dollar changes hands within a community. The higher the velocity, the stronger the local economy.
Local banking increases that velocity.
Instead of flowing out of state or into distant markets, dollars circulate:
One deposit. Multiple impacts.
Local Reinvestment Creates Compounding Growth
Big banks optimize for scale. Local institutions optimize for place.
That difference matters.
When capital is reinvested locally:
Over time, this creates a compounding effect. Businesses grow together. Jobs stay local. Neighborhoods become more resilient.
It’s not charity—it’s smart economics.
Banking Local Is a Strategic Advantage for Businesses
For business owners, banking locally isn’t just about values. It’s about leverage.
Local financial partners:
When your bank is rooted where you operate, incentives align. Growth becomes collaborative instead of distant and abstract.
Strong Communities Are Built, Not Imported
Economic strength doesn’t arrive from the outside. It’s built internally—one reinvested dollar at a time.
Local reinvestment:
That’s how communities scale responsibly. That’s how they future-proof themselves.
The Bottom Line
When businesses bank locally, money moves faster, stays longer, and works harder.
Local reinvestment isn’t just good for Glen Burnie—it’s how Glen Burnie grows.
And in an economy driven by connection, trust, and momentum, keeping money local might be the most modern financial decision a business can make.
Choosing the right bank account is one of the most important financial decisions a small business owner can make. Yet many businesses operate for years with an account that no longer fits their needs — or rely on just one account when multiple options could improve cash flow and organization.
Understanding the differences between a business checking account, business savings account, and business money market account can help you manage day-to-day expenses, plan for growth, and make your money work harder.
At The Bank of Glen Burnie, we work with small and mid-sized businesses across Maryland to help them choose account solutions that align with how they operate — today and in the future.
Below is a simple breakdown to help you decide which option (or combination) may be right for your business.
A business checking account is typically the foundation of a company’s financial setup. It’s designed to handle frequent transactions and support daily operations.
Best for:
Key features:
For most small businesses, a business checking account is essential. It keeps operating funds accessible while supporting digital tools that make banking more efficient.
A business savings account allows business owners to separate funds they don’t need for daily expenses while still keeping them accessible.
Best for:
Key features:
Many small business owners use savings accounts to avoid dipping into money that’s meant for future obligations. By keeping these funds separate, it’s easier to budget responsibly and prepare for slower seasons or unexpected expenses.
A business money market account is often a middle ground between checking and savings. It typically offers higher interest potential than traditional savings while still providing liquidity.
Best for:
Key features:
For established small and mid-sized businesses, money market accounts can be an effective way to make idle cash work harder while maintaining flexibility.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. In fact, many businesses benefit from using more than one account type:
Using multiple accounts can improve visibility, support better cash flow management, and reduce the temptation to spend funds that should be set aside.
Selecting the right business accounts isn’t just about features — it’s about understanding how your business operates.
Working with a local community bank gives business owners access to bankers who understand the local market, regional industries, and the challenges small businesses face. From account setup to cash management services and future lending needs, having the right banking relationship can make a meaningful difference.
