Joe Fretschel celebrates 20 years with North Shore Bank this month.

When he started here in 2002, Joe Fretschel had a lot on his plate, from staffing issues to fixes that needed to be made to the bank’s host system. Such a big slate of projects was an appealing proposition to the corporate loan servicing manager and VP, who has always thought of himself as a “working manager.”

“If something is amiss, I want to be the one to find and correct it, rather than wait for someone else to tell me that we have a problem,” he says. “When I started, I had problems and was looking for solutions. Today, I look at many different exception reports looking for problems.”

“I have had the pleasure of working with Joe for 13 of his 20 years at North Shore Bank,” says his boss, VP loan operations Nicole Daniels. “He is a great, dedicated, inspiring leader who has transformed his team over the years. He approaches each day with a positive attitude and always rises to challenges — in fact, he looks forward to problem-solving and providing resolution. Regardless of what comes his way, he embraces it. Joe readily shares his knowledge to empower our teams and encourages others to believe in themselves. As he says, there is no way any other financial institution is having as much fun as we are! I tell him regularly that he can’t retire until I do, so I’m looking forward to another 20 years together.”

Joe spoke to Shorelines about his 20 years at North Shore Bank and why he’s enjoyed them so much.

Your title when you were hired was Corporate Banking Loan Servicing Manager, which has changed only slightly since then.
Well, more important than titles are the number and variety of items my area has handled over the years. Managing the direct and indirect loan and lease portfolios has always been my responsibility. So has lease accounting. Over the years, we’ve added commercial leases, some small-business loans (which eventually went to the Commercial area), and credit cards (and that portfolio was sold). At one time, I also managed the Mortgage Servicing area — both the vendor when we outsourced that work, and then internally when we brought it back in-house. I still handle real estate-based insurance loss claims as well as construction loans. My feeling has always been that my title is really “all duties as assigned.” Whenever and wherever there’s a need, my people and I are ready and willing to help.

What kind of expectations did you have when you started here?
I remember the hiring manager telling me in the interview, “We need a working manager who can think outside of the box.” And truer words were never spoken! That really appealed to me, because that’s what I have always done: find creative ways to solve problems.

Right off the bat, there were staffing issues that needed attention and funding exceptions that needed to be taken care of, and at the same time, we were booking about 200 leases and 400 loans every month. I also noticed the bank’s host system wasn’t handling reserve clawbacks or insurance rebates — so I had a lot to do in a very short time. I was being pulled in a lot of directions. At night I would go home — and it really was night outside — and I couldn’t remember everything I’d done all day. So I started writing it all down. By keeping track of everything we were doing, we weren’t making the same mistakes twice, and we were getting better every day. My expectation was that we needed to improve by at least 1 percent per day. And by the end of the first year, after I’d started on February 4, I felt like we had indeed seen a 330 percent improvement.

And has the role continued to call for that kind of creative thinking?
Oh yes. My job is to keep our portfolio efficient, and as profitable as possible, and that means I have to be both involved and creative. I still perform file maintenance on accounts, talk with customers, and handle issues that come up every day. I personally have changed the bank’s prime rate over 40 times, which is used as the base interest rate for many of our loans. Since 2017, we have set 29 monthly volume records, by number of loans. I feel good knowing I’ve been part of each one of those, whether it was because I corrected a dealer reserve calculation or changed the prime rate.

What’s the feeling that motivates you to handles all of these different responsibilities?
I want everything done right. When we book a loan, we need to make sure our documents are right, the signatures are right, and we are calculating interest, payments, and refunds the way they’re supposed to be.

And I’m very persistent by nature. When I start a job, I want to finish it. When I started here, there was so much going on and so many areas where I felt my experience could add value — it was a never-ending job. Fast-forward a number of years, and I feel my persistence has rubbed off on people around me. They were all persistent when they started, but I think they’re all very persistent today. My apologies to their family members!

Sometimes things aren’t easy or clear cut, but you use a little creativity to make things work. And of course, you keep looking for better ways to make them work better! And sometimes we’re told something can’t be done. We’ll experiment to find out if that’s really true.

Besides the nature of the job itself, what gets you excited to come to work?
I love being around people who are comfortable taking initiative, not afraid to learn, and creative — and who care about things as much as I do. I’m very lucky that everyone working in my area fits this description. My people work very hard, take initiative, and are very good at making sure that we don’t have any missing links in whatever we are working on. They care about doing things right.

As an added bonus, they really care about each other. This has been a crazy couple of years with the pandemic as well as everything happening in the news. My folks pick up the slack, continue coming in every day, and continue doing an awesome job. If I’m out of the office for a few days, everyone knows what they need to do, and where to turn if they get stuck. We talk about issues all the time, and everyone is free — and expected — to speak up and offer suggestions. I’m also very lucky to have in Nicole a manager who thinks the same way. With the group of people I’m around every day, coming to work is a very easy thing to do!