Jordan Dunn
Vice President
Bank of Colorado
What is the most rewarding aspect of your job?
The most rewarding aspect of my job is helping customers reach their financial goals — helping a business grow, a couple buying their first home, or a customer’s child opening their first savings account are just a few examples. I love seeing our local community grow and knowing the bank played an important role in that.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned from a career in banking?
Relationships are the most important thing in banking. All banks have similar products and services, but it is the people behind those services that can make a big difference, especially as a community bank. Our customers are not just a number.
You are a CBA Advocacy Class Alumni, and you will graduate from the Graduate School of Banking (GSB) in July. Can you tell me more about what you’ve learned from these courses?
GSB has given me an opportunity to learn a lot about banking and understand the industry better than ever before. The CBA Advocacy program gave me the chance to learn more about what CBA does and the important role of protecting the banking industry and Colorado businesses. I really enjoyed taking what I learned from the Advocacy Program and bringing the knowledge back to my branch.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was a child, I wanted to either be the President of the United States or a janitor. My mother suggested I be a janitor at the White House.
Mbiyu Chisholm
Regional Planning Lead
JP Morgan Chase
What is the most important thing you’ve learned from a career in banking?
The importance of surrounding yourself with mentors, supporters, and allies — mentors to teach you and show you the way, supporters to advocate for your growth and challenge you, and allies to help carry your voice.
You recently took on a new role at the bank, can you tell me more about that?
In my new role, I assist in properly staffing and scheduling employees in our branches in order to improve our client experience and the communities we serve. We know that having the right people in the right place at the right time is critical to the success of Chase. This starts by understanding how many bankers to hire and when and includes scheduling our team’s day-to-day to make sure we can keep up with the client traffic. This is achieved by collaborating with Regional Directors, Market Directors, and Branch Managers.
How do you like to give back to the community?
Financial literacy is very important to me, and I enjoy working with organizations like CBA and Young Americans. I am also passionate about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts, and I serve on the American Bankers Association Board for Black Bankers.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was a young child, I wanted to be a chemical engineer. I was interested in finding ways to provide low-cost energy solutions.
Sheryl Bollinger
President & CEO
AMG National Trust
What makes your bank unique?
AMG began as a wealth management firm and built banking on top of that to meet our clients’ needs over their lifetimes. Our services are integrated to make life easier for our clients. We consider ourselves a community bank with a national reach, providing wealth management and banking solutions to our clients across the U.S. We are focused on understanding a client’s goals and developing solutions to meet those goals.
How do you like to give back to the community?
I most enjoy giving back to the community by personally volunteering, which allows me to directly see the impact that a non-profit is having related to its mission. As part of being on the Jr. Achievement board and a volunteer, I love working with students of all ages as they learn something new in every interaction — be it a second grader learning how money moves in a community or a high schooler figuring out what career they would excel at.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned from a career in banking?
Banks help communities successfully function and grow. Bankers bring people together to innovate, build, and transfer ideas as well as things.
Tell us something about yourself most people don’t know.
I enjoy preparing tax returns for family members while I watch movie marathons.
Steve Meier
Regional President
Bank of Colorado
How did you get started in the banking industry?
Upon graduating from CSU in the mid-80s, I began my career with Federal Land Bank in Southeastern Colorado. It felt like we foreclosed on more farms and ranches than we made new loans during my first year. It was a tough time in agriculture and in lending, but looking back, it was a great experience starting out as a new lender. It allowed me to see and experience first-hand, with my hand actually “in the poop”, the importance of cash flow-based lending vs. collateral or balance sheet-based lending.
What is the most rewarding aspect of your job?
We make a difference! I can drive down Main Street or around Northeastern Colorado and look at the many successful operations that make N.E. Colorado what it is today. I know we had an impact in making our towns, communities and Northeastern Colorado a better place to live, raise a family, operate a business, and retire.
Can you tell us about your involvement in Agricultural Banking?
In order to have a successful N.E. Colorado, we have to have a successful agricultural community. Our towns in N.E. Colorado — and for that matter, all of Colorado — would not thrive without the Ag Commerce generated by our farm and ranch families and agricultural business in general. It is extremely important to me that we continue to provide the financial tools and expertise needed for ag operations to be successful. We take agriculture, including water, for granted and without our farm, ranch and agri-business community, we don’t eat. I like to eat!
Tell us something about yourself most people don’t know.
I graduated #7 in my class. Although we only had 15 in the graduating class at Peetz High School, we had an extremely sharp class and thus the reason for me graduating #7 in a class of 15.
