April 2025 | Brittney J. Miller

Al Hanser — fighting retirement after decades in the investment and banking industries — started a trust company in 2001 from a chair and folding table in his Sanibel garage.

By its second year, the Sanibel Captiva Trust Company managed $53 million in assets. That nearly doubled the next year. The business eventually added offices in Naples and Tampa. By 2022, the locally and employee-owned company sat at $3.3 billion in assets under management.

That same year, though, disaster struck the company’s birthplace when Category 4 Hurricane Ian slammed into Southwest Florida. More than three feet of water swamped the Sanibel Captiva Trust Company’s longtime office on Sanibel Island. Even more devastating, the storm displaced many of the company’s employees and customers from their homes.

In response, it was all hands on deck.

“We immediately go into this ‘care for our clients and care for our employees’ mode right after hurricanes,” says CEO Terry Igo. “It’s all about people, not profits, in that mode.”

The week Hurricane Ian hit, Igo and Hanser secured a long-term lease at the Bell Tower shopping center in Fort Myers. The 10,520-sq.-ft. office building — the company’s seventh — officially opened in April 2024. (In the meantime, the company found temporary office space for its displaced employees in the city.) It was an expansion the company had planned to make, management says, one hastened by the storm.

The Sanibel Captiva Trust Company also extended its resources to impacted clients. Employees were working the phones, says Jeff Muddell, president of the Sanibel office. His team helped families find temporary housing at hotels or Airbnbs. Changed flat tires. Completed flood remediation on impacted structures. Called boats to get evacuated residents back to the island.

In total, the team estimates it personally assisted around 50 clients after Hurricane Ian. It also helped local nonprofits stay afloat post-storm, which aided the area’s overall recovery. “We’ve basically been the tentpole for the community,” Hanser says.

Despite hurricane disruptions, the Sanibel Captiva Trust Company has continued to blossom on Florida’s west coast.

It now serves more than 500 families from Marco Island to north of Tampa, boasting a 98% client retention rate. Its employee base has swelled from 40 to 64 in two years. The new Fort Myers office is established and thriving. Company assets now total over $5 billion.

The company moved into its new office building on Sanibel Island — which was under construction when Hurricane Ian hit — in March 2024. The local clientele is shifting as the island experiences post-storm turnover. But the company’s mission stays the same.

“Our clients are the most important asset we have,” Muddell says. “It was critically important for us to get back to Sanibel, to rebuild on Sanibel and be part of the community on Sanibel post-Ian, to be resilient. We’re glad that we are here and we’re back.”

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