Pub. 15 2020-2021 Issue 2

WWW.NEBANKERS.ORG 8 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Lessons From the Months That Vanished Richard J. Baier, President and CEO, Nebraska Bankers Association I LOOK BACK ON THE PAST FEW MONTHS AND WONDER WHAT happened to the spring and summer of 2020. Despite the many personal and professional challenges experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been spending some time each day in my office or at home trying to wrap my brain around lessons we have or should have learned throughout the process; what can we learn as families, bankers and com - munity leaders? For me, the COVID lockdown reinforced the importance of gratitude. On a personal level, likemany families with college-aged chil - dren, our daughter returned home to finish the semester online and our medical student’s education was placed on hold for an extended period. While their return to our home often stressed our Wi-Fi, it also gave us time to reconnect without the numer - ous distractions experienced in today’s technologically driven world. We suddenly found ourselves eating more family meals, practicing our socially distanced golf game, taking family walks and even enjoying family game night. For these opportunities, our family will be eternally grateful. At the NBA, COVIDgave our team the opportunity to reevalu- ate operational plans, programs and activities while contemplat - ing how to best represent the banking industry as our economy and country return to a new normal. Your NBA team was able to implement and conduct a real-time test of the NBA’s disaster recovery plan. I am pleased to report that our team managed to successfully work from home for more than six weeks with minimal problems. Granted, we also learned some valuable les - sons such as the need for additional laptops, with many of those improvements already in process. My staff and our IT partners deserve a great deal of credit for helping us navigate these choppy waters. The reminder in this situation is to thank your partners and vendors for their support! Another trend that was expedited as a result of the pandemic was the transition of meetings and banker education to more virtual delivery. I was not familiar with Zoom or WebEx a few short years ago. Today, our team has successfully migrated a large number of events to these platforms. I suspect our new normal will include fewer in-person events and more virtual options. Our experiences also reinforced that bankers benefit greatly from personal interactions. Therefore, I am thankful to our team for their innovation and creativity in delivering virtual events, but I will also be thankful to see and interact with our bankers in person. In the meantime, I encourage you to par - ticipate in the various NBA virtual events and also to follow the association on social media.