Trust the partner who knows your business Having spent much of my career leading retail operations at a community bank, I know financial institutions don’t want to be the first to take on something new. Fortunately, they don’t need to write the cannabis banking playbook from scratch. The team at Shield Compliance has deep expertise … Read more
As the fourth generation of his family involved in leadership at Peoples Bank, Munster, Ind., Ben Bochnowski knows he has a responsibility to carry on a proud legacy of excellence almost a century deep. A key part of that work has been putting together a stellar team inside Peoples Bank and fostering the development of qualified banking employees in the broader industry. [Continue]
Back in spring, when the coronavirus first upended American life the supply chain that supports the U.S. dairy industry collapsed. Producers responded by dumping milk down the drain and calling, en masse, for government intervention. Part of the federal response to aggrieved producers is the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. [Continue]
A transformative core culture transforms core customer experiences DCI leads among core technology providers with a historically unique composition of women executives who advance a unique, needed perspective and culture in the industry — one that focuses on listening. The DCI culture has always been defined by a symbiotic relationship with customers, and the conviction … Read more
When the first round of funding from the Paycheck Protection Program opened the floodgates in April, Nikki Walker sat with fingers poised over the keyboard, ready to wrestle with the Small Business Administration’s E-Tran portal. Walker put in 16-hour days entering applications during the initial rush, working at the head of a team of six reviewing files after lenders had turned in paperwork. All told, the St. Francis, Minn.-based Village Bank processed 329 applications totaling more than $55 million by the time the initial funds ran out. [Continue]
Chris Lee traveled a lot when he worked for accounting firm Eide Bailly. Criss-crossing North Dakota in a car brandishing Future Farmers of America license plates, his boss Darrell Lingle in the passenger seat, a young Lee chatted politics, family and weekend plans — the most important things to him at that time. [Continue]
Though Jeremy Skoglund is a North Dakotan, he’s always been a Cubs fan. As a baseball player growing up, he played in any position he was needed. “Shortstop, pitcher, catcher — wherever.” Skoglund, currently a trust officer at First Western Bank & Trust, Bismarck, N.D., has taken a similar approach to his career in banking. [Continue]
Heather Malcolm wants people to understand that ag lending is more than a subset of commercial lending. In fact, Malcolm believes ag lending is different enough — and the ag relationship important enough — that she invested time and talent to advocate resurrecting the agricultural track within the American Bankers Association’s Commercial Lending School, including writing some of its curriculum. [Continue]
When TJ Minnehan walked into the Bank of Kaukauna, Wis., for an interview to become the bank’s president, he looked around, walked out, got in his car and turned the GPS back on. “I thought it had taken me to the wrong address,” Minnehan said. “I thought, ‘this looks like a museum.’” [Continue]
In late March, community bankers were handed what seemed an insurmountable task: To design and implement processes to execute the U.S. Treasury and Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. And they did, all across the country. While this article recounts the experience of the PPP lending team at Investors Community Bank in Manitowoc, Wis., it also honors all the PPP lending teams that lit the sky the way stars do when darkness, or the absence of certainty, spreads. [Continue]