Scott Jensen marks 35 years with North Shore Bank this week.

Life was “pretty simple,” Scott Jensen chuckles, back when he was hired at what he calls “the old Westgate branch” in the late ’70s. “No kids, not married.” He had been a teller at M&I Bank in Racine for nine months when a headhunter contacted him about a loan officer/assistant branch manager position at Southeastern Savings & Loan, likely a better fit for Scott’s finance degree.

He took the position with Southeastern, which would merge with North Shore Bank in 1984. Later, he worked as branch manager at Wauwatosa for 13 years, before moving to Brookfield Square to handle the branch’s consumer lending. That led to his current spot at Corporate as a leasing specialist and internet mortgage loan originator.

The degree helped, of course, but it’s what he learned after graduation that has really made the difference. “College is college,” he says. “You get a background from school, but doing this is real-life experience. Real-life experience is different.”

Now, besides having three kids — daughter Brittany and twins Eric and Matthew — with wife Traci, Scott helps customers from all over Wisconsin with their lending and mortgages, taking calls and dealing with applications that come through our website. And even when he’s not a customer’s primary point person, he does his best to take care of them.

“Working at Corporate, I do get phone calls for other areas,” he says. “You see what you can do to help the customer out, instead of transferring them to somebody else. If they’ve got a question on a balance or history or something on their RV or boat or car loan, I always tell them I’ll see what I can do for them. It saves them time if I can just email them or explain something over the phone.”

Experience, technology make the job easier
“Back when I started, everything was basically done by hand,” Scott remembers. “You’d call the credit bureau, they’d give you the information you needed over the phone, and you’d write it down. Now you go to a website, plug in the information, and it all prints out for you.”

There’s always a learning curve with technology, he notes, but on the whole it has made his job simpler and faster. “Processes are just more streamlined. A lot of the stuff we do is still paper-driven, but technology has made it easier. We can complete a lot of things over the phone or via email.”

Scott credits VP of Customer Support Jude Lengell with helping him get where he is now. “I think she had confidence in me, knowing my lending experience.”

And he routinely puts that experience to use helping customers understand what lease-end or mortgage option makes the most sense.

“Over the years, Scott has worn many hats for the bank and has worn them very well,” says VP Darrel Eisenhardt, who has worked with Scott since their days at Southeastern. “He is a trusted banker — customers look to him for sound financial advice and are never disappointed. He has always put the customer first, and he continues to do that in his role today.”

“I try to put myself in the customer’s seat and explain things the way I would like them explained,” he says. “I don’t like to sell something just to sell it. It’s got to fit what their goals are.” For instance, he’d typically prefer to set up a customer with a home equity line of credit program that will see some of their payments go toward their principal as well as the interest. “That way, the loan balance isn’t just hanging out there forever.”

Having three and a half decades under his belt helps Scott offer that kind of guidance.

“You want to explain to them how you’ve done things in the past, and see how it works for them, and hope it works for you,” he says. “I’ve done this throughout the years, so that has come back to help me.”