Our district managers celebrating a prosperous 2018: Cristen Baumann, Brian, Lauri Lunde, and Kerri Collins.

This month, Shorelines is honoring the achievements of our top retail managers for the fiscal year 2018. To close things out, top district manager Brian Bozek.

“I have been so pleased to support Brian’s growth as a leader for the three years he has been a district manager,” says VP branch sales Craig Witz, noting that Brian has also been named top DM each of those years (and was named a Branch Manager of the Year right before that). “His enthusiasm for positive customer outcomes comes through in everything he does. He is just so energetic, it’s infectious!”

Another of Brian’s strengths, Craig says, is his openness to feedback. This past year, Brian focused on incorporating an “ask, then tell” approach into his coaching style.

“Instead of me always showing and telling, I’ve been learning to let the people who work for me show me what they’re doing, and then I make recommendations based on that,” Brian says. “It really does work.”

Brian says he’s generally a positive, upbeat person, but that he gets an extra boost of energy from his team.

“I always push people to do more than what they think they can do, and when they do that, it resonates with the customers,” he says. “And when I see them succeed, it rubs off on me.”

He says he draws inspiration from New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. “I kind of mirror what he does. He’s a communicator, and he sets goals and has a structure and game plan in place — that’s what I really teach, too. I know banking can be a dry subject, but there are goals, and when you reach them, that means you’re taking care of your customers.”

Branch managers under Brian’s purview — Regency’s Mary Benz and Burlington’s Robin Callis — took two of the three spots for Branch Manager of the Year in 2018. (Joline Lazarski at Southwest was the third.) Among other things, he says, that success came from focusing on the basics: looking at the conversations branch employees are having each day with customers, and being consistent about following up to capitalize on the opportunities those discussions offer.

“We’re firm believers in things like sending handwritten notes to follow up with customers,” he says. “That has really differentiated us from the competition. In this day and age, our customers love to receive a note like that from their banker or the branch manager, because it shows our personalized touch.”