Empowerment and Heart

Umpqua Bank, my employer, has an extremely unique culture and I've thought of it as a perfect fit since I began working here in July 2010.  One of the amazing attributes of the bank is its encouragement towards empowerment by everyone who works here and some of the most incredible stories come from this empowerment, both related and unrelated to work:

- during one of my trips to Seattle around Christmas 2010, I learned of a story wherein a customer and his buddy (not a customer) were waiting in line at their branch (but we call them stores) and the manager overheard the buddy telling the customer that he was concerned he'd not be able to afford much of a Christmas for his kids, in fact, he wasn't sure a tree was in the cards that year.  Well, the manager found out the buddy's address from the customer and that night purchased and delivered a Christmas tree to his house.

- my building in Hillsboro adopted a family this last Christmas but the story is that at Thanksgiving, one of my co-workers decided that the family might just need some assistance for dinner.  He dug in and learned that indeed, a turkey dinner wasn't in the cards.  So he and his family (including two small kids) purchased a full traditional Thanksgiving dinner, the pots and pans in which to cook it and delivered it the day before.  While there, he noted a few things missing so after conferring with the Mom, he went to the store and came back with bags and bags of things that were needed (TP, diapers, condiments, milk, etc.)  On his own, and in lieu of his own Thanksgiving dinner.

I could go on and on ... these two stories will stick with me for a long time, and they are part of what I tell people when they ask why Umpqua considers itself the World's Greatest Bank.