Janet Brammer isn’t your typical “creative type.”
Says Janet, the service coordinator in our Retirement Services department: “I would definitely be working in some sort of creative field if I weren’t in banking. Almost all of my interests and hobbies revolve around the arts — music, art, design, movies and fashion.”
That might sound like an odd contrast, given the passion she’s brought to her job for the past two decades, a job that consists of some decidedly non-arty duties, like administering annuity sales, 457(b) Deferred Compensation Plans and Health Reimbursement Accounts for municipality employees.
It earns her some surprised reactions when she and husband Keith, the bassist for influential Milwaukee punk-rock band Die Kreuzen, are out socializing. “When people we don’t know ask what I do and I tell them, they look at me like ‘What?'” she says. “But I love the analytical part of it, the numbers, the working with structure. I thrive on that.”
Looking for more
Janet started with North Shore Bank on Jan. 23, 1993. A temp agency sent her over to help in the overworked department, called Wholesale Banking at the time. “And I just stuck around for 20 years,” she says, laughing.
It was a part-time spot at first, requiring good organizational skills, some computer aptitude and experience with customer service. Janet had cut her teeth in the circulation department at Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel while going to school at UW-Milwaukee and then managed Limited Express clothing stores in California and Wisconsin.
“I just kind of got burnt out by the whole retail business,” she says. Plus, she had put finishing her degree on the back burner to move to San Francisco and knew she wanted to complete it. “It was a personal goal. I had promised my dad I would finish it, and he died when I was 21. That was something he really wanted for all his girls.”
The bank turned out to be a perfect — and supportive — fit. “I liked North Shore, and it’s a big company, so I knew I could move around if I wanted to try something different,” Janet says. She credits her co-workers with encouraging her when she began taking night classes at Concordia University to finish her degree: “I will always be grateful.”
Some things change, some stay the same
Not surprisingly, the most significant change she’s noticed in her job since she joined the bank is technology. “There is no way that 20 years ago, I would have imagined customers would be banking from their phone!” she says. Otherwise, she notes, “There have been many changes — some good, some bad — and the only way to face them is head on, and embracing them.”
Her work has changed too, but only to an extent. “The scope of it has pretty much stayed the same, because deferred compensation has always been the core — that’s just like a 401(k) in the public sector,” she says. Because she is so involved with public employees, the recent state legislation affecting that sector has had an impact on her work. “We’re not seeing as much reduction in people deferring as we thought we might,” Janet says. “But we’re seeing a lot of people retiring who probably wouldn’t have. But it’s not like they’re taking their money away — we’re still servicing them and getting them set up.”
And she isn’t going anywhere either.
“I love telling people I have worked for the same company for 20 years — the look on their faces is priceless. It really is a rare and beautiful thing in this day and age,” Janet says. “Honestly, it’s my co-workers and boss that have kept me here all these years. A truly exceptional group of employees makes this company thrive and a place I am very proud to work.”