Tag Archives: Issue 20180426

25 years in, Kristin Hoch grateful for a job and colleagues she likes

Kristin Hoch has been with the bank for over 25 years.

Deposit operations team lead Kristin Hoch loves getting things in order and tackling big challenges — which is one reason she’s been with the bank for 25 years.

“I am very operational and love problem solving. I enjoy learning new things and working in a fast-paced environment, and I do especially well under pressure. So my current position fits me well!” Kristin says.

Her last position — imaging team lead — did too. In fact, when that job was created in 2006, Corporate leadership specifically asked Kristin to take it.

“It was a pretty detail-oriented job — something that required precision, accuracy, and experience, and I had those qualities,” Kristin says.

Previously, Kristin had been a teller at Badger Bank’s corporate office (now the East branch) starting in 1992; she became one of our first teller sponsors while she was there. (North Shore Bank acquired Badger Bank in 1996.) She also worked at New Berlin and Milwaukee Capitol, becoming a personal banker and then a branch supervisor. She was at Fox Point when she got the request to move to Corporate.

“We were in need of bringing in a leader who could oversee the imaging, the related processes, and retention of documents,” says Jude Lengell, vice president, deposit operations, one of the leaders who asked Kristin to take the job. “The job required someone who was process-minded and paid attention to detail. We needed someone with strong organizational skills and who was able to think outside the box to come up with solutions for the ‘exception’ items that would arise. Kristin met these requirements and many more. She led a team that imaged hundreds of thousands of documents over the years and is still one of our subject-matter experts as it relates to RightFax processes.”

As imaging team lead, Kristin focused on work that some might find monotonous: organizing and scanning paperwork into the bank’s Nautilus electronic records system.

“We didn’t have things coming to us electronically,” she says. “Envelopes from every branch would come in, and I would sit until one or two in the afternoon just sorting all the paperwork they sent. Then, in the afternoon, I would scan all of those documents. It was a long, very manual process.”

But it was the sort of work she likes. “I really enjoy organizing materials like that and trying to get everything in the correct place. You can see what you’ve accomplished,” she says.

A couple of years after she started as imaging team lead, the bank began using RightFax, so that documents were transmitted electronically.

In January, Kristin was promoted to her current title. She still handles a lot of her previous duties, and also helps take some of the load off of deposit operations supervisor Janet Russell. “I’m here to help the team and help Janet with any spillover.”

Outside of simply enjoying her duties, Kristin’s long tenure with the bank has been a boon in another way recently. When her ex-husband, the father of her children, died suddenly of a heart attack last fall, she says, it was a comfort to have such a close relationship with her colleagues.

“It was like having your family around,” she says. “Jude was my manager when my son was 2 or 3, and she can remember him coming into the office and talking about dinosaurs. And now he’s 27. So I have a long history with the people I work with, and they’re really there for me.”