AVP and IRA specialist Lynn Strothenke retires on July 1.

“I was afraid of IRAs when I first started out, but decided to learn all I could about them,” admits AVP Lynn Strothenke. “And now look at me!”

If you don’t know Lynn — who retires July 1 — the punch line of the story is that she has worked as North Shore Bank’s IRA administrative specialist and supervisor since she came on board in February 1999. “Now I’m considered the guru,” she says.

Lynn dove into the world of Individual Retirement Accounts at her previous job for another bank in the area. Starting as a teller, she worked her way up through the ranks. Her trepidation about the complex products wasn’t always a handicap. “I was so afraid of them, I actually got an award for the most referrals to the investment area,” she remembers.

But finally, she says, she decided it was “ridiculous” to keep hiding from the products. She sat down and immersed herself in the language of IRAs so that she could specialize in them.

“It’s not unusual for people to be afraid of them,” Lynn says, partly because of the IRS’s involvement with IRAs. “You’re always afraid you’re going to mess something up and they’re going to come after you or the customer. Also, they need more paperwork than other products.”

The takeaway? Be curious and don’t be afraid of learning new things, she says.

Specializing created a path upward
It was Lynn’s decision to specialize that led directly to her employment — and very stable career, she notes — at North Shore Bank.

Her previous employer had some good people, such as her supervisor, but she says it wasn’t uncommon to find a newspaper open to the want ads in the lunch room there. And then one day, a co-worker clipped a classified ad and placed it on Lynn’s desk: North Shore Bank was looking for an IRA specialist.

Lynn called and spoke to Dennis Christoffel, our longtime head of Retirement Services. He drove to a restaurant near her job to meet her for lunch.

“There are plenty of people here who are important to me, but I wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for Dennis,” Lynn says. “I couldn’t have started here with a better person. He hired me, gave me responsibilities, and didn’t keep a leash on me.”

Having autonomy was helpful, because Lynn had to get North Shore Bank up to speed when she arrived. “When I came here, there was no formal training or manual on IRAs — I put that together,” she says. “It kept things interesting because there were always things to improve.”

The fun of figuring things out
Lynn was less thrilled about being separated from Dennis and her colleagues in Retirement Services when she and two colleagues were moved to the Customer Support Center in 2007. Before that, she’d worked with the rest of her department at the East branch and then Shorewood. The rest of Retirement Services just returned to Corporate last month.

IRAs had been handled by the CSC early on, and then given to Dennis because of their similarity to our deferred compensation program. Lynn ended up adjusting just fine to the move, of course.

“Everybody genuinely cares about everyone else here,” she says. “When we ask about something that happened to someone here, we’re not asking to be nosy; we’re asking to see if there’s something we can do.” Lynn had also worked with Jude Lengell — now our VP, Customer Support — before and looked forward to working under her. “I thought she was a wonderful person,” Lynn says.

“It has been a pleasure to work with Lynn the past 17-plus years,” Jude says. “Her knowledge and expertise in the IRA arena have been a great benefit for North Shore Bank and our IRA customers. Lynn’s persistence with the IRS has led to several positive outcomes for the bank. She has received many kudos over the years from customers she has helped, often during very difficult times.”

One such recent communication read: “Your professionalism and knowledge, as always, is exemplary. The bank is fortunate to have you as a representative.”

Now, Lynn has another change to look forward to. Besides reading, relaxing, and spending time with loved ones after she retires, she has at least one potential project on her slate.

“My husband Kurt, who is younger, has at least five more years to work, so I plan to organize. It’s amazing how much stuff you collect,” she says. “I even would like to organize his workshop, but I don’t know what half the stuff is used for. He is a little fearful that he will come home and not be able to find anything.”

If anyone can sort it out properly, though, it’s most likely Lynn.

“I love puzzles,” she says, explaining part of why she’s enjoyed her work so much. She even loves puzzles in the form of indecipherable IRA documents and their ilk. “One of my favorite things is when I get one that’s like, ‘Oh my God — this is so messed up!’ It drives you crazy, but at the same time, my mind is going, ‘Let’s pick it apart and find out how it got this way.’”