The Pewaukee branch celebrated Patty’s career and retirement with a party for colleagues and customers on April 18.

“Bittersweet” is how Pewaukee branch manager Patty Muehl describes her retirement from North Shore Bank. “It’s a whole new chapter, and it’s going to seem kind of like I’m on vacation! But I’ve really enjoyed my time working here. Everybody has been extremely good to me, and it’s hard to say goodbye.”

Of course Patty — whose last day is tomorrow, Friday, April 26 — will be glad to have more room in her schedule. Noting that her mother is in a memory-care facility, she says, “It is hard to balance things on a day-to-day basis, with work and her care — it just doesn’t seem like there’s enough time to do other things! And I love to be outside in the summertime, so it will be nice to relax a little bit.”

Her husband, John, looks forward to that too.

“He’s been retired for a few years, and he’s been kind of asking me how long I plan on working,” she says. “He’d like to be able to spend more time together.”

But after 20 years with North Shore Bank, Patty also understandably has a deep connection to her work and the co-workers and customers she sees every week.

“Our customers really become friends to us, and I almost feel like some of them are family members,” she says. “And I’ve learned so much, not only from my direct bosses, but also from the other people I’ve worked with. You can learn things from even the newest people.”

“Being with the bank for 20 years, Patty developed a fan club of customers who seek her out for both their simple and complex financial needs,” district manager Cristen Baumann said. “She has a passion for community involvement and is well known in Pewaukee for her contributions. She is definitely going to be missed, but I know we will stay in touch!”

Indeed, besides the relationships she’s formed at the branch itself, Patty has also become solidly embedded in the community thanks to the bank’s involvement with events like Taste of Lake Country, the annual Pewaukee Antique & Classic Boat Show, and the Pewaukee Kiwanis Beach Party. It helps that community nonprofit Positively Pewaukee is headquartered just upstairs from the branch.

“I think all of the community involvement kind of sets the branch apart,” Patty says. “Pewaukee has that small-town feel, where everybody knows each other — but on the other hand, it’s expanding, and that growth keeps things interesting.”

She’ll still be busy, as she will start volunteering with the memory-care facility and has befriended many of the other patients’ families, who are going through the same thing she is with her mother. And she and John plan to stay in the area — or at least to be based here.

“He’s trying to talk me into getting another sailboat. Years ago, we had one and sailed Lake Michigan and other lakes, and even outside of the country,” she says. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that again, though!”

For now, though, she’s thinking about how much she’ll miss the connections she’s made here.

“I came from retail, where you see people come and go. So when I started this job, I didn’t realize how close I would become with some of these people. I’m just amazed at how much they actually share with us,” she says. “I didn’t expect that I would care so much about everybody.”