Independent Banker - April 2022 - 57

Bath and colleagues
volunteer at a food
bank once a month.
Karri L. Bath
Vice president of compliance/HR
manager at $215 million-asset Nevada
Bank & Trust in Caliente, Nev.
Time in community banking: 23 years
" I created my job
from the bottom
up. It's like my
baby, and I have
a hard time even
contemplating
giving it up. "
-Karri L. Bath,
Nevada Bank & Trust
I started at Nevada Bank &
Trust in February 1996.
I had just graduated from the
University of Nevada Reno in
December 1995 with a bachelor's
degree in business administration
with an emphasis in human resources.
After I moved to Ely, Nev., to be with
my fi ancé, I took a position as a parttime
teller.
I left the bank in February
1997 to pursue a career in
human resources at a local
gold mine. When the company
declared bankruptcy in April 1999, I
approached Nevada Bank & Trust for a
job reference. Instead, I left with a job
off er as a full-time teller. In July 1999,
I advanced to loan offi cer/new account
specialist and remained in that
position until February 2003, when
I took the position of HR manager/
compliance and training offi cer. Both
were new positions to the bank.
I created both departments
from scratch, writing policies and
procedures and implementing
training. In mid 2004, I became an
assistant vice president of the bank.
And in January 2020, I became vice
president of compliance, while still
maintaining my duties as HR manager
and training offi cer. There is very little
that happens at the bank that I am not
involved with in some aspect.
When I started in banking, we did
not have computers on the teller
line. All transactions were written
on tickets by hand. The tickets and
checks were run through a proof
machine, which would then encode
them, take an image and put it on
fi lm, then sort the tickets and checks.
We would bundle all the work for the
day together into a paper cash letter
and ship it to the Fed.
Research of transactions was
done on microfilm/microfiche. We
used to type our loan documents and
pre-printed forms and would keep
written ledgers of loan payments and
escrow accounts. Account signature
cards were either written by hand or
typed. We had to know the diff erence
between a debit and credit, which is
backwards from how they are used
in accounting.
There have been so many
regulatory changes over the past
20-plus years, one of the biggest
being the USA Patriot Act and
Know Your Customer. Account
opening and ongoing due diligence
changed dramatically. We were
forced to develop and implement new
policies and procedures and bring on
new software to stay in compliance.
The same is true with the
changes in mortgage loan
regulations. We used to be able
to do a mortgage loan from start to
fi nish in approximately two weeks.
Now, two months is the standard.
Cybersecurity has gone from
nonexistent to being one of the largest
cost centers for the bank. Technology
sure has taken us from manual
operations to automation across
the board.
I love my job! Nevada Bank
& Trust is the true essence of a
community bank. We know our
customers by name. I know every
employee who works for the bank and
talk to them regularly. Being a part of
a community bank is like being a part
of a big family.
I created my job from the
bottom up. It's like my baby, and I
have a hard time even contemplating
giving it up. The bank had faith in
me all those years ago to develop
two critical departments, and I
strive every day to continue to meet
their expectations.
Bath (right) helped found a charter
school in her community.
independentbanker.org Q 55
http://www.independentbanker.org
Independent Banker - April 2022

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