outstanding bank club director

Northwestern Financial Review, May 15-May 31, 2004 by Hilgert, Jackie

Membership in the Good Neighbor club is open to customers who are age 50 or better and keep $1,000 in a savings or checking account or $10,000 in a CD. The bank also offers non- customers an option to pay a $10 monthly fee to participate in the club. Marthaler has designs on capturing younger customers, the ones who may still have children at home, by possibly offering family events on weekends. Those plans are still in the concept stage, said Marthaler, and that might mean starting another club. "That would be a great way to solidify the relationships and ease them into the Good Neighbor Club," she said.

British transplant shows bank customers the world

The first thing Joan Gibson wants to make clear about her bank club is that "it's not a seniors club." As she goes on to describe a typical AmeriClub events calendar - a concert with country singer Alan Jackson or pop icon, Cher; a weekend in Chicago for live theatre; a major league baseball game; Christmas shopping in Austria; a New Year's Eve party in London, and Russia for the third time in five years - you understand her point. AmeriClub, the loyalty club at American Trust & Savings Bank, Dubuque, Iowa, is no ordinary bank club. And Gibson, AmeriClub's leader since day one, is extraordinary.

North * Western Financial Review's Outstanding Bank Club Director, Joan Gibson, was well into her second decade as a personal banker at American Trust when then-president Bill McGeehan asked Gibson if she'd be interested in managing a new venture for the bank - a seniors club. "It didn't take me very long to think about it," Gibson recalled.

Gibson joined a training program offered by First Citizens National Bank in Charles City, Iowa, to learn the basics of bank club management. "I came back here completely overwhelmed," recalled Gibson. The native of England had never before written a newsletter and her supervisor at the bank, a former high school English teacher, began to teach Gibson a thing or two about communicating to would-be members. "She was a demon when it came to punctuation," Gibson laughed. "My copy would come back to me all marked up in red." Once the grammar issues had been worked out, AmeriClub began accepting members in January 1990 and Gibson held her first event on Valentine's Day - a free movie.

"It snowed a blizzard that day and I was so upset," Gibson recalled. As it turned out, the weather was never an issue. The movie was a hit with customers and Gibson's first day-trip held shortly afterward sold out quickly. Despite the fact that bank clubs were a relatively new concept, AmeriClub had tremendous appeal.

"The success of the club is driven by Joan," said bank President and CEO Nick Schrup. Her appeal comes in part from her sense of style and "that British accent," Schrup said. "She has that unique pleasant personality that was recognized before AmeriClub and has carried extremely well into her leadership of the club."

"It didn't take long for us to get our first 1,000 members," Gibson said. Club membership is now at approximately 6,000 people at the $644 million bank; member's retail deposits amount to more than $190 million; brokerage and trust accounts push club holdings even higher. In order to qualify for membership, customers must maintain a balance of $10,000 in any combination of deposit accounts and meet the minimum age requirement, which was lowered to 40 last year.