Commercial lending academy brings formal training to Minnesota

Northwestern Financial Review, Oct 15, 2001 by Crews, Jennifer Goepfert

"The program took you through a natural process," said Fallon. "Presenting the case studies was very beneficial. It also allowed me to network with different bankers and some of these relationships are still active today. I learned a lot from the class; the contacts and relationships that developed out of the class have been equally beneficial."

Since graduating, Fallon has taken follow-up courses from RMA and has become involved in the association.

Dunn pointed out that a program like this can be critical when a bank is doing human resource planning.

"We can identify a person who we can develop into a commercial lender and tell them that as part of their responsibility they will attend the commercial lending academy," he explained. "It makes training easy."