Recognize a Rising Star at your bank!

Editor's Note: This column was included in the April 16 Pulse enewsletter. It’s April which means that BankBeat magazine and BankNews.com are accepting nominations for our annual Rising Star Recognition program. For more than a quarter century, we have solicited nominations in the spring in order to honor outstanding mid-career bankers in the summer. If you know an outstanding banker who has at least a decade of experience, I encourage you to nominate him or her. Selections will be made in mid-May and we will tell their stories in the July edition of BankBeat. Don’t wait; the deadline is May 8. .Look around your bank. Think about the people who make the biggest impact on customers and co-workers. Think about the people who go the extra mile; when volunteers are needed to take on some project at the bank, who typically steps up? Who takes the after-hours meeting or weekend event without complaining? Who encourages colleagues, or takes extra time with customers? Who comes up with new ideas, stays on top of the latest industry trends, or seems to be able to identify what’s coming next before everyone else? These are the kinds of traits that distinguish Rising Stars. We are looking for the next generation of industry leaders, so ideally a Rising Star is young (under 45), and would like to be in banking for the next couple of decades.You can click here to fill out the digital nomination form, or you can simply write an email, addressing it to Tom@NFRcom.com. We typically select a half dozen people from a variety of Upper Midwest states. Most years we receive more nominations than we can honor, so we save nominations for reconsideration in subsequent years. If you nominated someone in past years and they were not selected, I encourage you to nominate them again. A candidate nominated multiple times, perhaps by different people, gets the selection committee’s attention. In addition to essential information, use the nomination to tell us a story or two about the nominated person. The story could be about how the candidate went above and beyond to serve a customer, or how the candidate came up with an idea for a unique or new service. Or perhaps the person has a distinguishing role in the community, service club, or neighborhood group. Tell us something we can’t get from the candidate’s LinkedIn page.I’ll alert you up front that if you nominate someone and we select that person, I am likely to contact you with an offer to purchase an advertisement in the July edition to congratulate the selection in print. It’s not mandatory, but it sure adds a lot to the meaning of the recognition. Years from now, the selected person is likely to look back on the article and recall the encouragement of supportive colleagues. Don’t miss this opportunity to recognize a worthy colleague or employee.