SANTA ROSA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2026--
Exchange Bank (OTC: EXSR) is pleased to announce the promotion of Mindy Smith to Community Relations Officer, recognizing her longstanding commitment to community engagement, customer connection, and purposeful leadership.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260518735882/en/
Mindy joined Exchange Bank in 2015 as a Retail Service Manager, where she quickly realized her passion for driving impact, connection, and growth. In 2021, she transitioned into the Bank’s Marketing Department as a Social Media & Marketing Specialist. In that role, she played a pivotal part in connecting employees with community involvement opportunities, strengthening internal engagement, and elevating the Bank’s presence supporting local initiatives. Her promotion to Community Relations Officer reflects both her professional growth and her deep-rooted passion for community service.
“I wanted to be part of an organization that truly invests in the community I love,” said Mindy. “I’ve been fortunate to work with an incredible team and community members during my tenure and Exchange Bank has given me the opportunity to connect with people in meaningful ways. I’m excited that this opportunity will allow me to spend even more time out in the community.”
In her new role, Mindy will lead community engagement initiatives, expand partnerships with local nonprofits and schools, and spearhead the development of a comprehensive financial literacy program. This initiative aims to support our entire community by offering accessible, practical financial education—an area Exchange Bank recognizes has a meaningful need in the local communities.
Suzanne Knowlton, Vice President, Director of Marketing & Community Relations says, “Mindy has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to our customers, colleagues and the communities we serve. Her experience across retail banking and marketing, combined with her passion for community engagement, positions her exceptionally well to lead our philanthropic initiatives, financial education efforts, and employee volunteer programs. Mindy’s leadership, creativity, and dedication to service will continue to strengthen our impact throughout our communities.”
Mindy is a graduate of Chico State University where she received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a focus in marketing. She is also a Certified Financial Marketing Professional from the American Bankers Association. Mindy is an avid supporter of Redwood Empire Food Bank and Friends in Service Here (F.I.S.H.), where she combines her professional expertise with a heartfelt commitment to service. Known for her positive energy and collaborative spirit, she continues to be a driving force in strengthening the Bank’s community presence.
About Exchange Bank
Headquartered in Sonoma County and founded in 1890, Exchange Bank is a full-service community bank with assets over $3.30 billion. The Bank offers a comprehensive range of personal and business banking services including personal and business financing, and Trust and Investment Management services. Exchange Bank serves customers through 19 retail branches across the North Bay and Roseville, along with Trust & Investment Management offices located in Santa Rosa, Roseville, Marin County, and Silicon Valley.
Exchange Bank’s long-standing legacy of financial leadership and community support is grounded in its core values of commitment, respect, integrity, and teamwork. The Bank is known for its people—professionals who care deeply about their customers, their colleagues, and the communities where they live and work.
Exchange Bank is a 20-time recipient of the North Bay Business Journal’s Best Places to Work award and a 14-time winner of Best Bank of Sonoma County in the Press Democrat Readers’ Choice Awards (2025). Additional honors include Best Consumer Bank by NorthBay biz Magazine’s Best of the North Bay readers’ poll and Best Local Bank by The Petaluma Argus-Courier People’s Choice Awards (2025). Exchange Bank also received the 2025 San Francisco Business Times Corporate Philanthropy Award, and Bohemian Magazine’s Best of the North Bay 2025 named the Bank both Best Business Bank and Best Consumer Bank.
In 2026, Exchange Bank earned national recognition as one of America’s Best Regional Banks by Newsweek.
For more information, visit www.exchangebank.com.
Member FDIC — Equal Housing Lender — Equal Opportunity Employer
Mindy Smith, Community Relations Officer of Exchange Bank
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo will open three Ebola treatment centers in the eastern Ituri province, and the World Health Organization is sending a team of experts to the country, following an outbreak of a rare type of the virus that has killed nearly 120 people.
An American doctor in Congo is among the newly confirmed cases of the virus with no approved vaccines or medicines, Congolese officials said Monday, as details emerged about the government's delayed response to the outbreak.
The WHO on Sunday declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. As of Monday, there were over 118 deaths and 300 suspected cases in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, and one death and one suspected case in neighboring Uganda. Experts say the number of cases is likely to rise as health officials conduct more surveillance.
The Bundibugyo virus spread undetected for at least a few weeks, health experts and aid workers said. Cases have now been confirmed in Bunia, North Kivu’s rebel-held capital of Goma, Mongbwalu, Butembo and Nyakunde.
“Because early tests looked for the wrong strain of Ebola, we got false negatives and lost weeks of response time,” said Matthew M. Kavanagh, director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy and Politics. “We are playing catch-up against a very dangerous pathogen.”
He criticized the Trump administration’s earlier decision to withdraw from the WHO and make deep cuts in foreign aid — “the exact surveillance system meant to catch these viruses early,” he said.
The severity of the symptoms and the rising caseload are fueling a growing sense of panic in the neighborhoods of Bunia.
“I know the consequences of Ebola, I know what it’s like,” said Noëla Lumo, a resident of Bunia. She previously lived in Beni, a region hit by former Ebola outbreaks. As soon as she heard about the latest outbreak, Lumo began making protective masks by hand.
Congo has said the first person died from the virus on April 24 in Bunia, and the body was repatriated to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining area with a large population.
“That caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate,” said Congo’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba.
When another person fell ill on April 26, samples were sent to Kinshasa for testing, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control. On May 5, the WHO was alerted of about 50 deaths in Mongbwalu, including four health workers. The first case was confirmed on May 14.
Samples from Bunia were initially tested for the more common type of Ebola, Zaire, Congolese officials said. They came back negative, said Dr. Richard Kitenge, the Health Ministry Incident Manager for Ebola.
The first confirmation of Ebola came on May 14, and Bundibugyo was confirmed the next day.
“The situation is quite worrying and is evolving pretty quickly,” Esther Sterk with the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group told the AP. “It was detected quite late.” But she said that was often the case with outbreaks of Ebola, which has similar symptoms to other tropical diseases.
The American doctor is among the cases in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province in eastern Congo, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, medical director of the country’s National Institute of Bio-Medical Research.
Dr. Peter Stafford had been treating patients at a hospital there when he developed symptoms, Serge, the organization he works for, said in a statement.
Three others employees of Serge were working at the same hospital — including Stafford’s wife — but are not showing symptoms.
Seven Americans, including the one who tested positive, are being transported to Germany for monitoring, Dr. Satish Pillai of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a call with reporters. Pillai said the American developed symptoms over the weekend.
CDC officials did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about the American doctor’s condition.
The CDC, which has said the risk to Americans was low, issued travel advisories urging Americans traveling in Congo and Uganda to avoid people with symptoms like fever, muscle pain and rash.
The CDC said that, for the next 30 days, the U.S. would ban entry of all foreign nationals who had visited Congo, Uganda and South Sudan over the past three weeks, and take measures to identify individuals with Ebola symptoms at ports of entry.
Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal.
“Ebola is very much a disease of compassion in that it impacts the people who are more likely to be taking care of sick folks,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, an associate professor at the Brown University School of Public Health who survived Ebola more than a decade ago after contracting the disease in Guinea.
“I suspect that the number of cases is going to go up pretty dramatically in the coming weeks as we do better surveillance and end up finding there were a lot more cases and probably a lot more deaths than we recognized," he said.
Although more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have taken place in Congo and Uganda since 1976, this is only the third time that the Bundibugyo virus has been detected.
The U.S. CDC says it causes fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.
The Bundibugyo virus was first detected in Uganda’s Bundibugyo district during a 2007-2008 outbreak that infected 149 people and killed 37. The second time was in 2012, in an outbreak in Isiro, Congo, where 57 cases and 29 deaths were reported.
The Africa CDC chief, Dr. Jean Kaseya, told Sky News on Sunday he is in “panic mode” due to a lack of medicines and vaccines, but some candidate treatments are anticipated in the coming weeks.
Ituri's Mongbwalu is in remote eastern Congo, with poor road networks more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa.
Eastern Congo long has grappled with a humanitarian crisis and the threat of armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in Ituri in the past year.
U.N. staff have been asked to work from home and avoid physical contact and crowded areas, said a Bunia-based U.N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
Ituri has over 273,00 displaced people, according to the U.N.
Rwanda closed its land border with Congo on Sunday. Ugandan authorities said there was no evidence that Ebola was spreading within the country, and said that surveillance has been heightened along its border with Congo.
This corrects an earlier version of the story to note there is only one confirmed death in Uganda, not two.
For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Medical supplies are stacked inside a World Health Organization (WHO) warehouse in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Jackson Njehia)
People wait to have their temperature taken in front of Kibuli Muslim Hospital in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/ Hajarah Nalwadda)
A woman wearing a protective mask sells fruit from a roadside stall in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
People wash their hands at the entrance to a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
A general view is seen of Bunia where ebola outbreaks have been confirmed in Ituri province, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
A woman wearing a protective mask stands in the corridor of a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
