People

CRE expertise highly valued at Minnesota community bank

When Steve Huston, president and CEO of Bankwest, Rockford, Minn., invited Greg Ebert to join the bank’s board, Ebert responded in a way that could have been construed as self-serving. “I asked him, ‘What’s the upside for me?’” Ebert recalled. It wasn’t that Ebert, owner of Ebert Construction based in neighboring Corcoran, wasn’t community-minded. He simply knew that participating on a bank’s board introduced him to risk and brought with it a time commitment many business owners cannot absorb. [Continue]

Matt Klein appointed president of KleinBank

Matt Klein has been named president of KleinBank, Chaska, Minn. Klein has more than 22 years of experience in financial services. Prior to becoming president, he was KleinBank’s chief consumer banking officer, president of the KleinBank branch in Savage, and vice president of business development at the bank’s Chaska location. Klein formerly worked at Fleet … Read more

Illinois acquisition gives attorney another decade as bank director

When two outgoing directors at Illinois’ Pekin Savings Bank approached Pat Oberle about filling their shoes, he was hesitant. It was the mid-1990s and his hands were already full; Oberle was a lawyer in private practice and Pekin’s city attorney. Their persistence convinced him though, and Oberle quickly found he had a knack for bank governance. [Continue]

Business owner urges bank to help community impacted by disaster

It took only two hours for Lake Delton’s 700 million gallons of water to drain across a breached highway into the Wisconsin River. The calamity occurred after torrential rains in June of 2008 caused a dam to collapse. When the storm cleared, all that was left of the lake located just outside of the Wisconsin Dells was its muddy bottom. Without the lake, the area’s billion-dollar tourism industry was imperiled. [Continue]

Background in agriculture begets success in banking

Rod Fouberg never intended to get involved in banking. He got his degree in animal science from South Dakota State University, Brookings, and headed to the Sioux City stockyards. Fouberg then worked as a county extension agent for five years before Dacotah Bank approached him about becoming an agricultural lender in 1967. [Continue]

Leader in banking law helps TCF navigate risk

When attorney Karen Grandstrand was promoted to vice president and managing officer for the banking supervision department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in 1993, she assumed responsibility for consumer compliance examinations and became the community development officer responsible for CRA. Because the job required the former litigator to grasp the credit needs of a large swath of her adopted Twin Cities, she decided to join the board of Twin Cities Neighborhood Housing Services. Her work for the nonprofit directly contributed to her success at the Fed and set a precedent for how Grandstrand approaches board service. She ended up chair of that board and, later, chair of the board for the Minnesota Youth Symphony and chair of the board for the Minnesota Women’s Economic Roundtable. Grandstrand also has served as a director for Thrivent Financial Bank and continues to serve as an advisory board member for the Center for Law and Business at Mitchell-Hamline School of Law. But it is her service to the board of TCF Bank, Wayzata, Minn., that prompts BankBeat to honor Grandstrand as an Amazing Outside Director for 2018, along with four other directors. [Continue]

Minnesotan harnesses lessons from the recession

The years from 2008 to 2010 weren’t fun for bankers. Yet, those were the years Andy Schornack credits as the set-up for his current success as the president and CEO of Flagship Bank Minnesota, Wayzata. [Continue]

I still think of myself as a community banker

How I got into banking is kind of an interesting story in that I didn’t go to school to become a banker. I was going to go into law enforcement, getting my degree in criminal justice in 1980. I had been offered a position with a police department in North Dakota. Neither my fiancé nor my folks were all that excited about my career path. Prior to accepting the position, dad asked me if I would come to work at the bank. [Continue]