“T

he Bank is an awesome place to work,” the trainer pointed out during orientation. She was right. Los Alamos National Bank is a customer-pleasing machine, and every employee is a customer.

Together with an proactive community relations program, the bank's marketing function was becoming too much for the Marketing Coordinator to handle. I was hired as a clone (hey, in New Mexico, that's a good job!).

One of my early assignments was to write the 1998 Annual Report. For the first time in the bank's history, it went out the door without incessant rewrites. With that success behind me, I was asked to join a team charged with applying to Quality New Mexico.

QUALITY COMPETITIONS

Other than tourism, New Mexico's primary industry is defense contracting, and the contrators are under constant pressure to improve quality. One way to do this is by competing for awards offered by Quality New Mexico, making the organization a key player in the state's business community.

Perched amidst some of New Mexico's largest contractors, Los Alamos National Bank sought to distinguish itself by applying for QNM's coveted Zia award. Having won intermediate-level recognition for two years in a row, they hired a consulting firm to help them get to the top level. In addition to leading the writing of the marketing section of the application, I was asked to edit it and manage its production. Once the application was put to bed, I volunteered, along with several other team members, to serve on the QNM examining board.

The work paid off. Los Alamos National Bank became only the third recipient of the Zia Award. The achievement brought with it a desire to benchmark against the top performing companies in the country. The bank planned to do this by applying to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the Department of Commerce, for the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award. The original team re-consituted to modify the application based on the feedback received from the QNM examiners. A new draft was turned over to the consultants for final review.

DISASTER STRIKES

As the due date for the application approached, disaster struck Los Alamos in the form of a raging forest fire. The bank was evacuated along with the rest of the town, and critical operations had to be relocated. Within eight hours of evacuation, dedicated LANB employees had all critical systems up and running in unoccupied office space next to the Santa Fe branch. They also set up a special fund to assist families who had lost their homes.

When I asked if there was anything I could do to help out, Bank CEO Bill Enloe told me to contact the consultants and assure that the Baldrige application was completed. Working with the consultants, I edited the application and wrote a special introduction, describing how the bank held itself together and assisted the community during the disaster. As the fire raged on, I managed production of the application, and its on-time delivery to Washington (click here to see it).

Shortly before Thanksgiving of 2000, President Clinton announced that Los Alamos National Bank had won the Malcom Baldrige award. It was the first time the award had been given to a bank, or to a New Mexico organization. The resulting publicity helped support (and fund!) the bank's continued expansion, and foster their strategic partnerships for growth.

My experience in both marketing and community relations at Los Alamos National Bank helped prepare me to become involved in the world of non-profit...

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