Intern was the first job Gail Mikolich had at Northeast Bank. But since she was hired for that position in 1986, she’s worked in virtually every operations job at the bank. These days, she’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.
Belva Rasmussen, CEO and chair of the community bank in Northeast Minneapolis, says Mikolich was strategic about learning the business right from the start. After that internship and two years as a teller, she applied for an open spot in the bookkeeping department. The job was a grade lower than what she had, but it was a good position from which to learn about the bank.
She moved up through bookkeeping and data-processing management roles to become, in 1999, the bank’s youngest-ever executive vice president at the age of 33. Rasmussen attributes that progress, and some of the bank’s growth to $345 million in assets, to Mikolich’s continued interest in learning.
“She’s always reading and knows what’s happening in the industry,” Rasmussen says. She cites several initiatives led by Mikolich that have been central to Northeast Bank’s strategic development. Those include establishing an automated clearing house system for electronic payment processing, which reduced the use of paper checks, and setting up direct-deposit services. Mikolich has been key to developing the bank’s Web site and Internet banking services, and she’s working now on providing a remote-deposit offering for Northeast’s business customers.
Rasmussen says Mikolich works closely with Wells Fargo, Northeast Bank’s “correspondent bank,” to help develop new products: “It’s crucial that community banks have these services available from their correspondent banks because of the enormous product-development costs.”
Mikolich describes herself as a “professional student for the past 10 years,” and not just on the job. After years of evening courses, she’s finishing a bachelor’s degree now at Bethel University in St. Paul. Northeast Bank encourages personal development in employees, offers a generous tuition benefit, and promotes a healthy work/life balance, she says.
Sue Sjoselius, a teller with Mikolich 20 years ago and now Northeast’s executive vice president of marketing, says being an avid learner isn’t Mikolich’s only strength. She describes her colleague’s keen intuition in hiring, and her capacity to motivate people and set the right tone by example. But one of Mikolich’s best attributes is her ability to laugh and make others laugh with her.
“If Gail is at an event and sitting at a table with strangers, it’s not long before she has the whole table laughing,” Sjose-lius says. “That’s a gift.”
The two women are active together in the local chapter of the professional-development association Financial Women International. Miko-lich believes in networking and learning from the experience of others. She’s developed relationships with a small group of people who hold operations positions at area banks, and meets with them to share ideas. She says, “A strong network is one of the best things a professional can do for themselves.”
That’s the sort of initiative and creative thinking that singled her out as an intern 20 years ago. “When something is important to me, I’ll go out of my way to make it work,” Mikolich says. Having proved it many times over, she hardly needs to put it into words.
