Greene County Bancshares, the East Tennessee institution that is in the process of acquiring Franklin-based Civitas BankGroup, has tapped Larry Lovelace as regional president for Middle Tennessee. The move comes as the banking company is in the process of rebranding its Nashville-area operations, presently under the name Middle Tennessee Bank & Trust, with the new name "GreenBank."

Lovelace now manages 17 offices of the bank, located in Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner, Montgomery and Lawrence Counties. Through the Civitas merger, which is expected to close this quarter, GreenBank will grow to 30 area branches. Civitas has operated under the name Cumberland Bank locally. At $2.7 billion in assets after the Civitas deal, Greene County Bancshares will be the second-largest bank headquartered in Tennessee.

Lovelace got his start in banking with Nashville City Bank in 1977. He worked for Nashville City and its successors, Dominion Bankshares and First Union National Bank, until he joined Regions Bank of Middle Tennessee in 1993 as a senior vice president. In a decade at Regions, he rose to become president and CEO for the Middle Tennessee market. He joined Greene County Bancshares when it entered the local market in 2004.