Pub. 15 2020-2021 Issue 1

WWW.NEBANKERS.ORG 14 I N A NORMAL YEAR, MANY BANK INTERNS BEGIN THEIR SUMMER working at the teller line. This year is certainly not normal and Callie Dethlefs’ first banking experience was a little unique. She started her internship by handling Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan guarantee paperwork for Town & Country Bank in Ravenna. Dethlefs, a junior agribusiness major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, planned to start her Ag Banking and Finance internship inMay. After the universitymoved classes online, she headed to her parents’ home near Rockville. There, she helped her father on the farm, worked on her classes and continued her tutoring job with the Nebraska Athletic Department. An early- morning call from James Friesen, Town & Country president, changed her plans. Like banks across the country, Town & Country was scrambling to understand and deliver the PPP to custom- ers. Friesen recalled thinking, “We're going to have to basi- cally deliver this program as quickly as possible before the money runs out, while at the same time, we're still trying to interpret the rules.” He asked Senior Vice President Mark Ficek to take the lead on implementing the PPP. Michael Bauer, current Town & Country credit analyst, was brought in to assist. As the roll-out neared, Friesen called Dethlefs and asked if she wanted to start her internship early. “I think it was 7 a.m.,” Dethlefs said of the phone call. She was in the bank two hours later ready to learn how to process the PPP loans. This was Dethlefs’ first experience working in a bank. Friesen knew the tasks she would take on needed to be fairly simple and easy to teach. Friesen taught Dethlefs the ins and outs of putting the files together, creating the closing package and the basics of Town & Country’s loan processing software. “Within two hours, she could create the loan package we needed people to sign at closing and she was even researching business entity information on the State of Nebraska corporate information inquiry page,” he said. On her first day, PPP applications were already coming in, so Dethlefs got to work right away. In two weeks, Dethlefs helped Town & Country Bank with over 120 PPP loan packages. “It was honestly a huge help to be able to dedicate her to that specific task,” Friesen commented. “She was absolutely a core part of that whole process.” PPP Alters Internship Kara Heideman, Director of Communications and Marketing, Nebraska Bankers Association