Our Department of the Week is Consumer Loan Servicing, run by Loan Servicing Manager Joe Fretschel. The last few months have been particularly eventful for the department, especially after a team member suffered — and survived! — an unexpected heart attack in the fall. Consumer Loan Servicing already had plenty to keep it busy, with a finger on nearly every loan or lease the bank touches — as well as hamster funerals to prepare for! Read on to find out more about that. Last week’s Department of the Week was Mortgage and Consumer Underwriting.

Front row: Maribeth Osmundsen, Judy Dean, Kelly Thiemer, and Eric Hofschulte. Back row: Joe Fretschel, Brent Neumann, Sarah Gantner, Rachel Knitter, Marna Thillemann, and Julia Peters.

Department Personnel
Joe Fretschel, Loan Servicing Manager
Judy Dean, Loan Funding Rep
Sarah Gantner, Loan Funding Rep
Eric Hofschulte, Process Analyst
Rachel Knitter, Loan Servicing Specialist
Brent Neumann, Loan Funding Team Leader
Maribeth Osmundsen, Loan Funding Rep Team Leader
Julia Peters, Process Analyst
Kelly Thiemer, Loan Funding Rep
Marna Thillemann, Loan Funding Rep

What are some things you’d like other departments or branches to know about what your department does?
In one way or another, Consumer Loan Servicing touches almost everything with the word “loan” or “lease” in it. On both the direct and indirect loan sides, we balance, fund, and book every consumer loan and lease. This includes verifying that documents are accurate, and that the terms on those documents match the Fiserv system. We also make sure that all of our documents are scanned, so that they can be viewed by everyone within the bank who needs access to them. We make sure that all of the interest rates are correct, that the collateral is filed and tracked, and that the loans are all billed accurately and timely, and we post payments and perform a wide array of file maintenance to the accounts.

We also handle a wide array of other situations and materials, including: answering subpoenas for loan documents, death and disability claims, documents and files for both internal and external examinations, subordinations, and insurance indemnity payments; and we serve as a resource for the call center and for other branches and departments that have more specific questions. When loans are paid off, we handle the system and document transactions, release our lien(s) on collateral, and send the files to storage.

What events or projects or times of the year keep your department especially busy?
From the beginning of the year until the fall, our indirect loan season hits just like a hurricane. North Shore Bank is — and has been for many years — a leading source of funding for boat and recreational vehicle financing through the dealer network. Our indirect funding team will steadily balance, book, and fund these loans and leases (after obtaining corrected documents, in many cases) with the utmost accuracy and speed.

Spring and fall bring with them various direct-loan promos, which keep us on our toes. Our direct funding team has a lot of fields to populate and review, and they’re as accurate and speedy as the indirect funding team. In fact, few people outside of this department know that we are audited monthly on our booking and funding accuracy. Our group collectively has received nearly a perfect 4.0 rating (on a 4.0 basis) for almost the entire past 10 years! That’s a phenomenal record for anyone who has tried to achieve that level of accomplishment.

The end of the year always brings with it more servicing-related tasks, such as verifying and sending out 1098s, reconciliations, rearranging the file room, and a host of other fun activities that come around only once every year.

In essence, we are busy all the time. Even during those times of the year when volume is lower, we still have many loans in our portfolio that need to be serviced in one way or another. This includes everything from the thousands of statements we send out every month, to the daily posting of transactions, to the correction of items, to removing older paid loans from the storage system.

What are some important moments or people in the department’s history?
What really seems to define us as a group is that at least half the members of our department have been with North Shore Bank for 10 years or more, with many coming to us from branches. Branches are where many members of our group first became familiar with NSB culture, processes, and procedures, in addition to excellent customer-facing service. These previous customer interaction experiences in the branch network have taught us to focus on the issues and problems at hand instead of going into a panic mode — especially when something happens that we haven’t experienced before. This was especially important when we were faced with a real life-and-death situation a few months ago.

Any personal celebrations or milestones among the people at your department recently?
Since Rachel Knitter’s heart attack this past November, we’re first and foremost happy she is back and at 100 percent. We thank everyone once again for all of their thoughts, kind words, and prayers for her recovery. Every one of them worked! Along those same lines, as a result of what happened, our team has become a closer-knit group and tries to celebrate each day. Every time a little annoyance comes along, the question that pops into our heads is “How does this relate to the big picture?” It’s surprising how many things are really insignificant and not deserving of any attention at all.

What’s a great work story from your department?
A former employee of our team once called in because her hamster had died and she needed to attend its funeral. (Sad, but true.) When she came back to work, she herself told everyone about it, and about how it was given a military funeral. Being the creative thinkers that we are, we still wonder whether or not she served a camouflage cake at the funeral luncheon. (We couldn’t independently verify her story — but the legend lives on anyway.)

Is there some music, or a TV show or movie or book or anything that’s notably popular among the people in your department?
We are lucky in that many of our members enjoy cooking and baking. They are definitely over the top in their abilities. Of course, we’re biased, but we feel we are the best in all things culinary (and of course loan-and-lease related).

We also have a “white elephant” gift exchange at Christmas. There are always lots of laughs and the wonder of who will be taking home some of the gifts that seem to reappear each year. None of these gifts (fortunately) included the hamster.

Any exciting or noteworthy developments on the horizon for your department?
Our friends at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau always seem to know how to engage our creative genes. We’re forever adding new fields in Fiserv (where none existed before) and finding ways to mine data to make effective decisions and changes where necessary. On any given day, we’re updating, tweaking, adding to, or making a process and/or procedure better than it was before. Continuous improvement is a daily way of life in our department, and everyone here embraces it.