Bremer Bank Crookston office President, Jim Snyder, is retiring Tuesday, July 17 after 37 years in the financial line of work. Jim is a 1976 graduate of the Mount St. Benedict High School in Crookston and he attended college at UMC and
Moorhead State. He started his professional career on July 13, 1981 working at Bremer Financial in St. Paul and 37 years later, he is retiring from Bremer in Crookston. Jim said when he started working interest rates were high. “When I first started, interest rates were over 20% for prime rate, it wasn’t easy finding a job because we were in a recession at the time and I was very fortunate to get a job at Bremer Bank at their headquarters in St. Paul,” said Snyder. “From there I worked in the audit department, eventually in the loan review department and moved to Crookston back in 1984 when the two banks (First National Bank and Polk County Bank) merged together. I came a week before the merger so after a week of work here it was all chaos and it was a great time to work through all that stuff.” Jim has spent the last 16 years managing banks, seven and a half years at Border State Bank in Thief River Falls and the last eight-plus years at Bremer Bank in Crookston.
Jim said the biggest change in the banking industry over the years has been the technology and online banking. “When I first started working the fax machine was the way to do things if you wanted to get it there quickly, there was a lot of hand written stuff back then. They did have ATM machines back then, but not that many banks had one,” said Snyder. “As you look at banking now, the online banking, mobile banking, everything is automated and goes into your account automatically and comes out of your account automatically. The traffic in the lobby is down significantly over the years, although we continue to grow, you wouldn’t know it by the people count in the lobby.” Snyder said being a part of Bremer has been good for cybersecurity and other technology safety measures. “We have a whole department set up and dedicated to fraud prevention and looking at all the different fraud transactions and unusual activities like that to get ahead of those crooks that keep changing their methods,” added Snyder.
Jim is looking forward to retirement, where he and his wife, Michelle will be working on getting a lake home built on property he owns. “Michelle and I have had a lake place by Detroit Lakes for 26 years and I bought some property seven or eight years ago, so over the next couple of years we are going to build a lake home out there. We will take our time and do some work on it ourselves and plan it so a lot of time will be spent on that, clearing trees and stuff,” said Snyder. “I spend a lot of time with non-profits as part of my career and I will also get involved volunteering with some Refuges in the area.”
Jim said he will miss the variety that the job brought every day. “The people part of it is so important, so rewarding in a lot of ways and not just the good times, but the challenging times where people pull together and get things done as well as some of the customers that have had trying times and successful times it is really fun to be a part of those things. I really want to thank the Crookston community for all the support they have given me over the years. I am proud to work for Bremer Bank, it is a great organization and they take care of their employees and it is a sound financial organization.”
Snyder is married to Michelle, who works for Polk County and they have two children. Megan Snyder lives in Fargo and is engaged and will get married September 8 and Jacob Snyder lives in Crookston and is married to Kayla and they have three kids.
Bremer will have a retirement open house for Jim on Thursday, July 12 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the bank lobby. Everyone is invited to wish Jim well in his retirement.
