Congratulations and Thanks

Northwestern Financial Review, Jul 15-Jul 31, 2008 by Bengston, Tom

We are pleased to conclude our Rising Star honors for 2008 with the presentation of four additional outstanding young bankers in this edition. In the June 15-30 edition, we featured bankers from North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa; in this edition, you will find features on selections from Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Since we started this recognition program in 1998, NorthWestern Financial Review has honored 85 bankers as Rising Stars.

Rising Stars was a natural addition to our established recognition programs. We have been honoring a "Banker of the Year" each January since 1989, and we have honored 120 bankers since 1988 through our annual "Outstanding Women in Banking" feature.

I consider honoring industry professionals to be one of the most important things that we do at NorthWestern Financial Review. Each year, thousands of people work very hard in the banking industry, providing invaluable service to their communities. Banking professionals, of course, are paid for their work but it's the non-paid efforts that often make them extraordinary - those early-morning meetings with the service club, or the late night meetings with the school committee, or the extra time spent with a loan prospect. A lot ofthat work goes unrecognized and that's one of the reasons we started our various honors programs.

NorthWestern Financial Review could not honor these bankers without the support of a very vibrant vendor community. In this issue, you will note several advertisements from industry partners congratulating our selections. Those ads are essential to the success and viability of the Rising Star recognition and the other honors programs. Because we never know who is going to be selected until only a few weeks before publication, it is very difficult for companies to budget for these recognition ads. Yet, year after year, so many gracious companies step up with a meaningful congratulatory message. With this Straight Talk column, I thank the companies that make it possible for us to honor so many outstanding bankers every year.

I also want to thank you, our readers. We rely on you several times a year to nominate your colleagues for the various recognition programs. We typically receive several qualified nominations, which means that many times we don't get to honor every nominated banker. If you nominate someone who is not selected, please save the name for next year and nominate the person again. I'll let you in on a secret and say that selections often are people who have been nominated more than once.

Congratulations to our Rising Stars and many thanks to all who make it possible to honor these outstanding bankers!

By Tom Bengtson, Publisher