Character lender made an impression on Bell director.James Wieland counts his time spent serving on the board of directors for Bell Bank not in years but in decades. The youngest face in the room when he began, he has now served on the board of the Fargo, N.D., institution for 41 years.While the bank itself has grown to $14 billion in assets from $42 million during that time, Wieland, too, experienced tremendous gains marked in knowledge about banking and business, as well as in friendship with his colleagues at the bank and on the board.“I was involved in building a pretty nice business. Other than that, being on the Bell board has been the highlight of my career,” Wieland said.“I really like (then-President and CEO Richard) ‘Dick’ Solberg and he became one of my very good friends. He was a very skilled leader and a tremendous banker, so I liked hanging around with him because I was learning things,” Wieland continued. “And I’ve learned so much about other businesses.”Wieland is being honored by BankBeat magazine as an “Amazing Outside Director” for 2026.While Wieland has admired the bank’s growth and success, he also applied knowledge he accrued over the years on the board to his own successful businesses, the GOLDMARK family of companies, which includes commercial real estate services, property management and development, as well as Sterling, which is involved in real estate investment trusts.Thinking back to early in his career, Wieland recalls that he decided he wanted to sell real estate, in particular income-producing properties. Then, in 1981, he and a colleague started their own business, ultimately growing to a team of 500.“We just tried to hire people smarter than us, and encourage them, find out what was important to them and help them achieve their goals,” Wieland said. “By doing that, the business just kept growing.”While Wieland retired about five years ago from the company, he still owns some stock and attends upper management meetings.“I liked working on real estate deals. I liked evaluating property and basically trying to figure out what kind of price we could afford to pay, whether this works for us,” Wieland said. “I really enjoyed dealing with my clients because when you’re working, you’re married, you have kids, there isn’t much time for other friendships. So, basically your clients and the people you work with become your friends.”The success of the business afforded Wieland the opportunity to be generous with others. Programs that help disadvantaged children, health care and sports are particularly important to him.“My emphasis on my charitable stuff is to help young people hopefully change the course of their life,” Wieland said.Among the projects he’s provided long-term support for is Legacy Children’s Foundation, based in Fargo, which helps low-income children who are not achieving their potential in school. Through Legacy Children’s Foundation, they receive academic coaching, literacy skills improvement and leadership training.This has helped students excel, go to college and get higher-paying jobs than they might otherwise have. The foundation shares on its website that its students have a 95 percent high school graduation rate, including 85 percent first-generation graduates, and have had 108 graduates to date.“It just changes the whole fabric of that family — and for generations,” Wieland said. Wieland said he knows that 200 years from now, there will be no record of who he was, but that supporting projects like Legacy Children’s Foundation will live on long after he’s gone.“I’ve tried to do things that will have an impact for generations. You can’t take your body with you but you can take love and kindness and caring. That can go on in people forever and ever,” Wieland said. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”His support has extended to the Red Cross, with his company providing the nonprofit organization with a building when it needed one, with appreciation for how much the Red Cross helped the community during major flooding in 1997.He’s also a booster of North Dakota State University athletics. “I’ve always been a sports fan, and so it’s been fun to be a part of that and be helpful there,” Wieland said.Health issues led him to the Mayo Clinic, which inspired his support of their programs, as well. “They do a lot of research there. Actually, they have twice as many physicians doing research as they do practicing medicine,” Wieland said. “It’s been fun to be involved with them and get to know a couple of their development people. Health care is really going to change the next few years with AI and it’s been fun to have a little insight into that.”What Wieland enjoys most is his family. With three grown children between the ages of 35 and 48, and eight grandchildren ranging in age from an infant to 20, Wieland relishes the summer weekends at a family lake house.“My family’s always been important to me,” Wieland said. Bell Bank has impacted Wieland’s life in multiple ways, including its support of his own businesses. Wieland notes that Dick Solberg would take the time every year to help Wieland and his business partner with a detailed financial statement.“We learned a lot from him. He did everything he could to help us with our business. And on the loan side, we got loans that probably no other bank would have given us,” Wieland said. “He was a character lender. He believed in us and, if we needed something, he helped us.”For Solberg, it came down to trust. “In business banking and business in general, I would say that just being able to do a handshake with a person and it’ll get done has been how Jim has operated over the many, many years, and pretty soon it’s just so automatic,” Solberg said. “My point is this: trust in business is very, very important. He’s trustworthy.”Appreciation for Wieland is generational, as well. Wieland recalls that he’s known current bank CEO Michael Solberg since he was a fifth grader. Michael Solberg said Wieland has long been a hero of his and an important influence on his family and the bank.“The thing that defines Jim is just his positive energy. He’s always adding value to every room that he walks in. You feel better after spending time with Jim, and it’s just such a rare quality,” Michael Solberg said. “No matter who he’s with, he makes them feel better about who they are, whether they’re a teller or the president of a company. And he’s just a very talented guy.”
