Built on Trust,

Standing on Tradition

Community Bancorp.

2002 Annual Report

As we have mentioned in the past, an annual report, no matter what its theme, will tend to reflect the community and the world at the time of its creation. Sometimes this is purposeful, as in the case of an anniversary or historical event, but most of the time it's purely accidental. The clothes that you see in pictures, hairstyles, eyeglasses, and the activities taking place in the community signal the year of publication almost as clearly as the date printed on the cover. This is one of those years when our theme is dictated by events. It is driven by an unimaginable lack of corporate and social responsibility that occurred on a massive scale at some major American companies within the past year. The corporate world was rocked by nearly 100 scandals in 2002 and five of the eight largest bankruptcies in history (WorldCom, Enron, Conseco, Global Crossing and Adelphia.) As a consequence, our 2002 report is focused on a group of critical intangibles like trust, respect, strength and tradition. None of these attributes lend themselves easily to illustration. One cannot take a photograph of care and consideration. You cannot paint a picture of honor. And so our report looks quite different from any that have come before it. Hopefully we will be able to demonstrate the qualities that make Community Bancorp. worthy of your investment through the use of the symbols which appear throughout the report. As we are all painfully aware, the corporate malfeasance of 2002 spilled from the business pages onto the nightly news, and the fallout led to a crisis of faith that shook the investment community to its core. The resulting fears were well founded, and led to a decrease in the capital value of American corporations that amounted to over 700 billion dollars by the fall of 2002. We learned, with almost every passing day, that major corporations with hundreds of thousands of stockholders were, in effect, "cooking the books." Worse yet, top executives at some companies were using company funds as a personal "cookie jar" to satisfy seemingly outlandish whims. Those of us responsible for the administration and governance of Community Bancorp. and Community National Bank, namely the officers and the board, viewed each disturbing piece of corporate news with increasing amazement. Enron, by itself, could be considered a rogue company, but with each passing week it became obvious that Enron was not alone. The cumulative effect caused us to ask some searching questions: Could anything like this happen at Community Bancorp. and Community National Bank? What factors serve to protect our shareholders from unethical corporate behavior, let alone criminal activity? The conclusions we reached were satisfying and we therefore decided to make them central to this year's report. Be assured, however, that our purpose is not to judge any other company or hold anyone else to our standards. We merely thought the time was right for a discussion of how Community Bancorp. and Community National Bank view their social and civic responsibilities, how they are governed, and the standards we seek to uphold.

 

Built on Trust, Standing on Tradition