What Our Customers are Saying

I am a former Marine and have traveled the world and therefore experienced much of the woes of national and international banking.

My lovely wife (an accountant) manages our books as well as those of many Associations located in and around Northern VA. My wife demands accountability, accountability of fund and accountability of service.

I am a Network Engineer and a fairly technical person. I like high tech, immediate access of funds and information. I have on many occasions attempted to move my wife to a newer more high tech bank. She will not budge!

She has in turn convinced me that Burke and Herbert is, and has been for over 150 years, the best bank for the people, providing the best service of any bank of any size or global presence.

The woman who manages money for a living loves Burke and Herbert and is not afraid to repeat that whenever a business asks for a banking referral.Thank you Hunt Burke, to you, your family and the company that you serve.

One evening, I did just that. I went over to the bank on Franconia Road in Alexandria, VA. I put the envelopes in the night deposit but it did not rotate. I tried several times but was not able to make it go down. The money was just sitting there and I could not get my hand in to get it out. It just happens that one of the ladies who work at that branch goes to our church. I drove back to the church and she helped me get in touch with Barbara Cupp who is the manager of the Franconia branch.

Now this was a Sunday afternoon at dinner time but when I spoke with Barbara she immediately said that she would meet me at the bank in just a few minutes. She did just that. She met me there not five minutes after a called. She worked with the deposit box but could not get it to rotate so she called security.

He had to come from Mt. Vernon so it took him a while to get here. Barbara offered to stay with the money until he got here and said I could go home. I chose not to leave until the money was safely in the bank so instead of going home, Barbara stayed with me at the bank for almost an hour. The security man came and he and Barbara were able to get the money safely in the bank. Barbara Cupp, in my opinion, went above and beyond. This is not the first time she has left an impression. She is an excellent people person and she knows her business.

I opened the new account with a bank cashiers check from Burke and Herbert. Unbeknownst to me, that bank put a 14 day hold on the cashier's check drawn on Burke and Herbert right across town! The checks that I had written to the college book store, along with my first rent check at my new apartment bounced! When I attempted to speak with the branch manager at the new bank, she said that it was bank policy to put 14 day holds on cashier's checks and that there was nothing she could do.

I promptly withdrew my money and returned to Burke and Herbert. When I told the people at Burke and Herbert what had happened, they offered to write letters for me to the college and to my landlord, even though they had nothing to do with it!!

The service provided and the individual attention given to my family has been unmatched by any other financial institution I have ever dealt with. Even after moving from the area I continue to use Burke & Herbert as my choice for

James tells me he still does business at the branch.

My deceased husband and I have enjoyed using your Fairlington branch for many years now, as well. We think well of your services and often recommend it to others. It is heartwarming to observe our Burke & Herbert Bank thrive, branch-out, and continue to serve Alexandria and other areas as well. Customer Miriam Newman Wiener

A Well-Placed Loan By Miriam Newman Wiener

The late Joseph M. Campbell, writer and educator, urged his readers and students to find their "bliss" and pursue it forever in earnest. James Click, Jr. does this even into his middle years. At age six he found delight in a runabout vehicle called "big wheels" which could pilot him indoors or outside his home. Wheels proved to be his "bliss" from those days forward. At age nine, James borrowed a motorcycle from his cousin, a Honda 125, and the excitement of his first ride was only dampened when he ran into the side of a house - James forgot to garner instructions as to how he might downshift the motorcycle and bring it to a halt.

At age 16 James and his father, James Click Sr. visited the Burke & Herbert Bank located at the corners of Monroe and Mt. Vernon Avenues in Alexandria, Virginia. A kindly man arranged a $1,000 loan in a few minutes. James, with some of his own savings, soon had his first bike, a Suzuki. Over many decades James has purchased, sold, and traded a variety of bikes - Harley-Davidsons, Yamahas, and even custom-made ones.

The Click family owns and maintains stewardship of the Bethel Cemetery in the Old Town section of Alexandria. When the elder Mr. Click was visited with arthritis and other medical issues, James Junior took over more of the many details needed in the care, etc. of the cemetery, along with meeting with families who needed to purchase a plot, negotiating sales, and arranging for graveside services when required. James can also order gravestones, if a client so desires. He is skilled at incising the stones with the usual dates of birth and death, the name of the deceased and any other sentiments suggested by the purchaser. James sometimes handles as many as six funerals a week at Bethel Cemetery.

When James finds a weekend or a day or two with no serious demands at the cemetery, he drives out into the far reaches of the Alexandria area, engages a rendezvous with one of his motorcycles and takes to the open road, ones which see little or not traffic.

Alone at last he is now a man and his machine. With the wind at his back, feeling occasional breezes, he can contemplate cloud formations and savor once again the welcome blue of the sky above. He leaves behind a harvest of memories, bereaving family members, solemn graveside services, the task of closing a grave after a loved one is lowered into his or her final resting place, observing mourners slowly leaving, some with a long last look backward to the scene.

More recently James revisited his "bliss" when he traded one of his motorcycles for a longed for Corvette. Motorists in this area need not expect to catch a glimpse of the driver in this car or on a motorcycle; James keeps his treasures out into the "hinterland" of our area, and as indicated before, meets his garaged vehicles there when he wants to enjoy a long ride.

Most days, however, you will find James at the cemetery attending to his many and varied duties. James spends many hours very much alone where he quietly moves among the hundreds of residents who arrived as deceased visitors and who will remain at Bethel, resting in peace, under the diligent care of James Click, Jr.

It began in the summer of 2005; I needed a new job since the jewelry store I was employed at had closed. My stepmother, Sonia Elfstrom, told me that Burke & Herbert Bank, where she had been working at for 10 years, were hiring tellers. I wasn't sure about working in a bank, I had no experience, but I needed a job. Sonia arranged for me to take my Tellers' Test and interview for a position. Afterward she introduced me to all of her coworkers, some I had met before over the years and some I hadn't. A particular employee I met was Dan Convery, a Customer Service Representative with an amazing smile! I was soon hired as a teller at the Falls Church Branch; at the same time I had begun to date Dan. Soon after, we were married and had a beautiful baby girl named Gabrielle! Over the years Dan and I had been promoted and transferred to several branches. At present he is the Assistant Manager at the Main Office and I am the Assistant Manager at the Landmark Branch.

Last year my little sister, Chelsea Elfstrom, was looking for a job and applied as a teller. At the same time my father in law, Danny Convery, had realized that retirement didn't agree with him and also applied for a job. Happily on December 8, 2008, they both began their jobs, Chelsea is a teller at the King and Washington Branch and Danny is the Collections Specialist at our Operations Center.

When I first moved to the Mt. Vernon area in 1979, my family decided to bank at First Virginia. When I got my first job at Hechinger's and needed to open an account of my own, I followed suit. A couple of years later, ATMs were introduced, and I liked the idea of instant account access, so I moved my account to First American. It wasn't until I was talking with a friend one day that I heard about Burke and Herbert. I needed a checking account, and B&H came highly recommended by my friend. Her dad had been banking there for many years. So I followed her advice and visited the Cooper Road branch to open my new account. I wasn't aware at the time that I wouldn't be living in Mt. Vernon for much longer.

About a year later, I had enlisted in the Air Force and shipped out for training in Texas. A few months after that, following a short visit to Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, I wound up at Langely AFB in Hampton, VA. During an inprocessing briefing there, the financial officer recommended that we hold onto accounts at banks we trusted, if we already had them established. Wiser words were never spoken! I kept my "Burke account" and made use of it throughout my enlistment, taking advantage of direct deposit to shorten the distances involved.

After leaving the Air Force, I returned to the Mt. Vernon area and was soon married. Remember that friend who recommended Burke and Herbert? You guessed it--she's my wife now. Anyway, we did our wedding planning and management through another B&H account.

After getting married, we moved into an apartment in Centreville. Even though there was no branch "way out there" in 1990, we stayed at Burke for our primary accounts. With parents still near Cooper Road, weekends always provided opportunities to take deposits "home". We eventually moved to Manassas, where we've lived for the last 16 years. I used to work in Tyson's Corner, so typically wound up going to the Falls Church branch during lunch, or the Smoketown branch (once it opened) on Saturdays. I've used other banks for ATM convenience accounts, but we've never considered moving away from Burke and Herbert.

I'm amused now when I go back to Mt. Vernon--there's no First Virginia, no First American, and no Hechinger; lots of things have changed. But Burke and Herbert still serves us on Cooper Road, and my direct deposits still go there twice a month. (And I'm still married to that friend!)