OuttaDeeBox Podcast
OuttaDeeBox podcast is a pre-recorded bi weekly show geared towards supporting former and current inmates and their families in Wisconsin. Our mission is to inform listeners about community resources that can assist them in securing employment opportunities, housing, mental health and substance abuse support, with the goal of reducing recidivism in Wisconsin. We also give listeners and guests the opportunity to share their unique inspirational stories through spoken word and other forms of musical artistry.
OuttaDeeBox Podcast
Empowering Community: Pam Blattner on Financial Literacy, Diversity, and Local Business Growth
Pam Blattner, a celebrated figure in the banking world and assistant vice president at Bank of Sun Prairie, shares her remarkable journey from retail to banking, and how her passion for community service drives her success. Discover how personal experiences with her daughter led Pam to create Limitless Wisconsin, an inspiring event that supports those with limb differences. As we explore her career, Pam reveals the transformative environment at Bank of Sun Prairie that recognized her potential and celebrates her as Sun Prairie's Best Businesswoman of the Year.
Learn how Bank of Sun Prairie is not just a financial institution but a cornerstone of community empowerment through initiatives like the Financial Fitness Center. This innovative project within Sun Prairie West High School is educating a new generation on personal finance, home ownership, and business building. Explore how these educational services aim to uplift individuals and small businesses, with a strong focus on equity and inclusion that supports small businesses of color. Pam highlights the bank’s unique, personalized approach to lending that sets it apart from impersonal national banks.
Our conversation takes a closer look at the bank's commitment to diversity and local business support, contrasting traditional banks with credit unions' community-centered efforts. Hear success stories of how the bank reinvests profits through extensive volunteer work and partnerships, impacting over 100 organizations. Dive into the vibrant relationship with the Sun Prairie Chamber of Commerce, which fosters local business growth through networking events like Sunrise and Sunset Sun Prairie. And for those looking to connect with the bank, Pam outlines the special promotions and services designed to cater to diverse financial needs. Listen in for an engaging and informative discussion on building a better community through financial literacy and support.
What's up everybody. This is your host Dee Star here with Pam.
Speaker 2:Blattner.
Speaker 1:So for the people that don't know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2:I am the branch manager at Bank of Sun Prairie at Main Street.
Speaker 2:I serve on multiple boards in the community. So I serve on the Business and Education Partnership Board in Sun Prairie, which is where business leaders come together with school admins and teachers and come up with programs to make sure that kids have employability skills. So we do a lot of volunteering within the school district. And then I also serve as the vice president for the Friends of the Neighborhood Navigators and that is an organization that is founded by the city and it's navigators that are put in at-risk communities throughout Sun Prairie and they kind of help triage and connect neighbors to 90 of the nonprofits in Dane County to make sure that if they need something we can help them with that urgent need until they get support and kind of get back on their feet. So that. And then I also I founded Limitless Wisconsin and that is an organizational event that happens once a year where I bring limb loss and limbs, different individuals all together so that way they can network and be with people that are like them. So lots of different things outside and inside my four walls here.
Speaker 1:How did you get into that, the limb loss?
Speaker 2:So my daughter is going to be eight and she was born with a limb anomaly. So she was born with one digit on her left hand and a shorter forearm and she had a really hard summer last year and she just wanted to be around people like herself. So I said let's throw a party with some of the people we know, and there ended up being a hundred people that came, so connecting this year with a lot of the veterans throughout Wisconsin and UW Health and a lot of other organizations to be able to Miracle League of Dade County to bring individuals like that together so that way they have a support network.
Speaker 1:I don't know why I just teared up, but that is, that is amazing, you know, especially like cause kids can be very mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So to be around other kids that look like you and you know can relate and understand and it's not a big deal for you to have, like, a missing finger or a missing leg or something like that, it's like we're all like this is fine, you know.
Speaker 2:Right and I keep telling her like she's not missing anything, she's perfect the way she is.
Speaker 1:There you go. Yeah, can you share with us your journey in the banking industry and what led you to your role as bank manager?
Speaker 2:That's a really great question. So I want to say it was a fluke and I was in retail management for 16 years and then I had kids and realized that working holidays and working weekends and stuff just wasn't conducive to family and I looked for jobs and the first thing I found was Bank of Sun Prairie and I applied and got the job and I've been here ever since. So I've been here for seven and a half years and I just kind of grew and the bank saw potential in me and they just kept rewarding me for good efforts and things done. And over the last seven years I think I've been promoted five times and now I'm the assistant vice president, senior branch manager at the Main Street location. So things have been going well.
Speaker 1:Yes, things have been going well, seeing that you just won a very prestigious award I seen you in the paper today Sun Prairie's very own Best Businesswoman of the Year by the Sun Prairie. Start right, yeah, All right. So tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could not believe that I was one of five nominees in Sun Prairie and then to be told that I won a couple weeks ago was huge. I feel like being at Bank of Sun Prairie. I am encouraged and we support so many different community organizations and I feel like that definitely played a part in it. Bank of Sun Prairie has just been such an amazing support role and network. We donated, I think, 5,300 hours last year from our 100 colleagues and we impacted over 100 different organizations in Dane County and Sun Prairie. So if I didn't have that, I wouldn't have the network base that I do to be able to connect with all the different organizations and such. So, yeah, really huge award. Thank you, Thank you. I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like you deserve it. Thank you, you know, when I was walking around with you to try to find a suitable space for us to hold this interview, I just seen a lot of admiration from your colleagues. I can tell that they really look up to you and they really respect you.
Speaker 2:That's nice to hear. I mean, you don't often hear that, and being able to see that vibe within 10 minutes is that's huge.
Speaker 1:Even the maintenance guy loves you.
Speaker 2:I love them too. That's huge. Even the maintenance guy loves you, I love them too.
Speaker 1:That's really awesome.
Speaker 2:So can you tell us a little bit about this financial fitness center? Yeah, so my background before I even started working was that I went to school for elementary education, so I was certified first grade through eighth grade, but I never took up the opportunity to actually teach. So this is a way for me to be able to bring that into the things I do every single day. And right when COVID happened, we were just about to roll out our financial literacy programming and we ended up having to do it virtually. But the bank is very committed and sees that financial literacy is something that every person needs and we wanna be able to play a role in being proactive and trying to help people and find ways to help them with their finances, because it really impacts every portion of life.
Speaker 1:It absolutely does as a key figure in the Financial Fitness Center. What do you find more rewarding about this program?
Speaker 2:For us at the bank, the most rewarding thing is our impact with the students in Sun Prairie. The most rewarding thing is our impact with the students in Sun Prairie. We actually opened a bank location within Sun Prairie West High School as a financial literacy outlet and we have a colleague that's dedicated 40 hours a week to being at the teachers, readily available to support them in whatever they might need. So that's huge for students, for students. And then recently Governor Evers passed a law into effect that every student needs to be able to have a certain amount of credits of financial literacy before graduating. So we're actually able to partner with the school to help students meet that criteria.
Speaker 1:I believe this year is the first year that that goes into effect for the school districts, but we've been working on this a little bit, and that's all on a stake, right, wow, and do you know how many credits that they need?
Speaker 2:I want to say it's 0.5.
Speaker 1:Okay, so they need to take a class? Yeah, that is awesome and I think that's something that everybody was kind of like champion and saying, hey, I think that we need to start teaching our kids financial literacy. It needs to be taught in school.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it does.
Speaker 1:Besides it coming into law, what pushed the Bank of Sun Prairie to be proactive in that?
Speaker 2:So I think every financial institution is looking for ways to give back to the community, and this is just one way where we know we can make a significant impact and impact so many lives, because I think none of us are really taught things other than how to budget a checkbook or balance a checkbook.
Speaker 1:I remember it vividly. That was it. It was balance, a checkbook.
Speaker 2:Or write a check.
Speaker 1:Yep. So they taught you how to write the check balance, the checkbook, and then that was it. That was all for the financial literacy.
Speaker 2:Right, but that doesn't tell you all the other little key components. And I think money plays such a big factor in stress in households that if we could take that burden off of somebody and help them be prepared, like how rewarding is that, you know, for us to be able to impact a community in that way. So we are really trying to just get involved wherever we can. Wisconsin Banking Association actually encourages every financial institution that's part of that group and organization to give back, encourages every financial institution that's part of that group and organization to give back. And for the last three years the bank has been recognized by the Wisconsin Bankers Foundation for certificates of excellence in the things that we're doing to be able to promote financial literacy.
Speaker 1:How do you see the Financial Fitness Center evolving to better serve the community's financial needs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of the things that we're doing right now is we partnered with the Sun Prairie Library and we offer courses where people can pop in, and then we offer courses as well to students or to children that can come in, and we try to do in-person sessions that are support their employees to help them live a better, balanced life, as well as the school district getting in and helping parents, helping staff, helping students. So the possibilities are really endless. We'll help anyone, but those are some of the avenues that we're looking at right now to help support our customers at the bank, as well as the school district and the people in our community.
Speaker 1:What do you guys see? What's next for the actual program? What are you guys hoping that you can create?
Speaker 2:I just hope that we create a better community. You know, a lot of things are impacted by somebody not being able to have funds right. It could be crime, it could be desperation, it could be divorce, it could be all of these negative things. And we just hope to continue to promote the positive and the proactiveness so that way our community is just more well-educated, with financial literacy, so that way we can kind of help proactively curb all of those things and make every person in our community have a better life. And I mean that's a really big goal and a really big grasp at, you know, trying to make things better. But really that's what we're trying to do is just make a better community for everyone.
Speaker 1:So can you go over some of the curriculum for the Financial Fitness Center?
Speaker 2:Sure. So there's three different kind of categories. The first one is just personal banking, so just talking about people in general and the things that might be prevalent to what they have going on, and that could be anything from budgeting how to make your budget work debt management, how to buy a car. What does retirement planning look like? Could be something as simple, too, as like mobile banking. Sometimes mobility and trying to understand online banking is not easy for individuals.
Speaker 2:Things that we're seeing right now that I think are important too, are identity theft how do we stay ahead of those things and credit scores how do we stay ahead of those things? And credit scores how do you know what your credit score is? What makes up a credit score? The other portion of that is businesses. How do you build a business? So how do you obtain business credit? How do you use it? What does a business plan look like? What are your financial statements need to look like, and then different banking services that go along with that. The third is homeownership, so how to consider if you're ready for homeownership. What do mortgages look like? What about mortgage modifications? So those are kind of the three buckets and kind of a wide variety of different things that we have to offer, but we've even created course content too, to go into different places, and someone says this is what we're looking for, and we try to ebb and flow and give them what they need as well.
Speaker 1:Wow. So how much do these services cost?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. They're free.
Speaker 1:You like how I did that, that alley-oop right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go. I like that. Thanks for the assist Well.
Speaker 1:so these are 100% free services, ladies and gentlemen, free that you can just go to the Bank of Sound Prairie, contact them or go on their website and you can look up these services and see what fits your schedule. And I think you guys have some online courses too, you know, so you can do them at your leisure and take advantage of these free programs and all of this free knowledge free game so you can build a better future for yourself and your loved ones.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. There's 17 in-person courses and there's over 50 online courses that we provide at absolutely no cost.
Speaker 1:Can you elaborate on the specific initiatives the bank has launched to support small businesses of color?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I think in anything that we're doing, we're always thinking about equity and inclusion and trying to figure out what does that mean for our community? How can we make sure we're supporting anyone and everyone and I mean that starts with, obviously, our regulations and banking and making sure that we have fair and consistent lending. We encourage and we want to promote any walk of life to be able to come in here and pitch our idea to us. I mean, as a small community bank, there are so many different things that we have the ability to do that a big bank can't do, and we want to hear about them. We want to support those individuals and really, just you have a dream, regardless of who you are. We want to support it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's very important for people to know that you guys don't discriminate. And we know it happens. Right, we know it happens. But it's really good to hear someone from the actual bank say hey, you know, you guys are welcome, you can come here. We want to hear your ideas. It's important to us.
Speaker 2:You have a dream and you want to figure out how to make it happen. We want to support that.
Speaker 2:What challenges do these businesses typically face and how does the I think education right, I think it all starts with this financial piece, right here in this literacy piece is knowing and understand what you need, because you might have a dream, but there also needs to be something built and established to help you make that dream. So maybe it's you don't understand what your credit score is right now and what steps you need to take to be able to make sure that you can get that loan. We'll take you back a few steps. We'll walk you through. We'll walk hand in hand with you. If it takes two years to figure out how to make sure we're rebuilding credit to get you where you need to be, we'll do that.
Speaker 2:There's so many people that come in and they'll sit down and say this is where I'm at, but I want to buy a home. That's great, but let's figure out what steps we need to do to be able to build, to be able to get you there. And maybe it's set up a plan, maybe it's credit. Let's talk about those things and take baby steps and do baby check-ins just to make sure that 12 months from now, 24 months from now, you're reaching the goals that you need to obtain, whatever that may be, whether it's homeownership, you want to take that special vacation, you want to build a business.
Speaker 1:We want to support you. You spoke about the difference between the Bank of Sun Prairie and a bigger bank, a national bank. Can you kind of take us through what would be the difference between the two?
Speaker 2:I think that every bank is regulated just a little bit differently based on their size and because of that, we have different things that we have the ability to do, such as maybe our lending guidelines might be different or our programming might be different, in that our checking account processing or the way that we do them might be a little bit different than a bigger bank. I think the cool thing about anything when you get outside of the corporate world is you're not just a number Like you could walk in here and, just like I interacted with the people around me, I do that with our customers too. So you walk in here.
Speaker 2:You're not just another number, you're Joe or you're Suzanne or you're D-Star right, You're your own unique person and we recognize that and it's really one-on-one and it's very personal, which is nice.
Speaker 1:So I guess the big question is what is the difference between a traditional bank and a credit union?
Speaker 2:There really isn't a whole lot of difference between the two. We both service customers, we both make money the same way. We both do lending. We both have some of the similar consumer products. A bank, though, traditionally is not for profit and a credit union is typically a non-profit. With that being said, you know everyone needs to have profits to be a business and there's a lot of discussion regarding banks and credit unions. That is outside of my world and concept and ability to discuss, but I think the cool thing about being a bank in general and being for-profit is the profit that we do make. We get to reinvest into the community in a lot of different ways and when people come here and they say why choose Bank of Sun Prairie, it's because we can give those 5,300 hours back to the community and we have the ability to support over 100 different organizations and use some of the funds that we have to just better the community that we live.
Speaker 1:You know. I wanted to know do you have any success stories that you can share with us, or any small businesses of color that you guys have helped grow over the years?
Speaker 2:I don't know if there's any that I am privy to give like names or acknowledgement to, but there's a couple of them that I can think of that are very local around here. From restaurants that we help support, there are haircutting salons and barbershops and nail areas that I know that you know we've helped them from the very beginning to get them to where they are now. I think just anyone right that walks in the door again back to that. That doesn't matter who you are, we're going to help you. But there's so many different people from so many different walks of life that just live here in Sun Prairie that you walk down the road and we're diverse, like we're a diverse community, and it's really cool too to see how many different, diverse restaurants and businesses and different establishments there are from all different walks of life throughout the area here. It's really neat to see.
Speaker 1:I know I agree with you Sun Prairie is more diverse than what people might think. In my neighborhood it's very diverse, A lot of everything that lives in my neighborhood. So how does these success stories influence the bank's ongoing commitment to diversity in business?
Speaker 2:You know, I think that once you help someone from a community, they're able to then tell their story to somebody else and it builds. And I think that you know that one success story can become multiple success stories or dream obtaining situations, just because of trust. You know, you establish trust with one individual and that goes so far. It doesn't matter what walk of life you come from. I think that word of mouth is the best advertiser, and when you do something good and you see one success, someone else comes to you and says I want some of that too. How can I get that? And it just kind of spreads, which is a really cool thing to see.
Speaker 1:What other programs do you guys offer for the community regarding financial literacy?
Speaker 2:Beyond this stuff right here that we just kind of went through, I think one-on-one is something else that we offer. You can come into the bank and you can sit down and maybe you don't feel comfortable sitting in a big setting with people and going through and talking about budgeting. But you come in here and you say, hey, one-on-one, I could use some help. We'll customize anything to help meet your goals.
Speaker 1:And it did feel very welcoming. When I came in here. They asked hey, do you want something to drink? Tea, water, coffee, a beer?
Speaker 2:I was going to say did they take you next door?
Speaker 1:They were really really nice and really really friendly and I appreciate that. So thank you guys for the hospitality. The staff here seems very, very nice.
Speaker 2:It's a great organization to work for, and having co-workers that you enjoy every single day is super important. So, yeah, I think that we're our own little family here, which is nice.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, definitely, good vibes here. So is there any community partners that you would like to acknowledge?
Speaker 2:There are so many community partners. I was just at an event over the weekend and the mayor was there and he said Pam looking around, he's like I'm looking at every single booth that's here and there is not one organization that the bank doesn't touch.
Speaker 1:Wow. And that was true Except Star Media Group.
Speaker 2:Except right now. We're right here.
Speaker 1:We're starting it. We're starting it and shout out to the mayor. I like the mayor.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, he's everywhere.
Speaker 1:And shout out to the Sun Prairie Chamber of Commerce. Can you talk about that a little bit? What is the relationship between the Bank of Sun Prairie and the Chamber of Commerce and how you guys work together to support the businesses in this community?
Speaker 2:One of our executives, joe Shook, is actually the chamber president currently. Really, yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, and then we have at least one ambassador right now. Alan Sobranek is ambassador. Anything that they do, we try to support. I mean, they are so integrated in the community and doing such amazing things. Christina and everyone there.
Speaker 1:Under her leadership Wow.
Speaker 2:Right. It's just amazing the cool things that they're doing and bringing so many people together to be able to network so many times a week and a month, I think is just phenomenal. Being able to support that is huge. I mean from Sunrise Sun Prairie, being a sponsor of that. Sunset Sun Prairie is coming here soon as well.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's actually going to be at the cannery. They're going to actually have a networking event after hours.
Speaker 1:For the people that can't make it during the day.
Speaker 2:Yep Coffee chat on Fridays. She was talking about that last year.
Speaker 1:She's like we're thinking about, instead of doing the coffee chats like in the morning, that we would do something also at night for the people that can't make it in the morning.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's starting. So I mean just the networking possibilities are amazing through the chamber and, like I said, that trust and that establishment of networking is huge. I mean a lot of the people at the chamber are getting other business referrals just because of connections being made. And I mean it's not just community members that have that trust that happens, it's business leaders too.
Speaker 1:I joined the chamber last year yeah, it was last year and it's just been a really, really great experience. I met a lot of different people, not only just in the community but other business owners, and I've had nothing but great things to say about them, and especially Barbara and Christina. They're both really, really nice.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They're all nice there. They're so amazing.
Speaker 1:So what's next? What's next for the Bank of Sun Prairie?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. I mean there are so many people here on so many different boards serving and we're all going in so many different directions. I mean, as the community of Sun Prairie grows, we grow with it, and as we grow with it, I think that every single year we have volunteered since I've started here, almost an extra thousand hours per volunteer year. So I mean the possibilities are really endless. Customers come to us. We'll figure out how to make your dreams come true. We'll try to help get the checking account you need or whatever. That is to support you, and we're here to help you grow.
Speaker 1:So how can people get in contact with you or the Bank of Sun Prairie, or if they want to start a business account, or if they want to, like you said, realize their dreams? How do they get started? What's the first step?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the first step is getting reaching out and getting in contact with us, and I think the easiest way is probably going to our website. All of our colleagues' information is all right there, and I'm on there for like the financial literacy piece too, so my contact information is out there phone call, email, whatever it might be. We'll get you in the right direction once you call.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Do you guys have any like specials or anything? Is there any incentives if they come and sign up now a checking account or something like that?
Speaker 2:We have a lot of different specials on different promotions within our certificates of deposit. We have different perks for each type of account that you do open with Bank of Sun Prairie. So it kind of depends upon what your needs are and we can kind of help guide and direct you that way.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, pam. I really appreciate you stopping by the podcast. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Hey, no, thank you so much for having me. It's been fun.
Speaker 1:I'm D-Star.
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