My First Job

"When I was 15 years old, I spent the summer painting houses in Sarasota. It was my father's idea. He urged me that summer to get a job and actually found this job for me. I got a friend of mine, who happened to have a car, to sign up to paint houses with me. We would be at the job site by 6 a.m. We'd paint all day, staying until around 4 p.m. It took us two days to paint a house and we got $25 each for the job. Most of the houses were older, in need of some sprucing up. In the summer heat of Florida, it was a lot of work for $25.

"The most important lesson I got out of that job was learning that I didn't want to be a painter. It also taught me the value of hard, dirty work under the hot sun. It was motivating in that it made me sure that I wanted and needed to go to college. And it motivated me to get a better job the following summer, working at American Bank in Sarasota.

"That was the summer of 1966 and the bank had just begun the process of computerizing their customers' checking-account ledgers. It was my job to get every statement for every customer and to sort it by year, month and account number. I'd transfer the paper statements to microfilm, then review them for accuracy, and then destroy the paper ledgers. That job really sparked my interest in the banking industry. I learned how to work with people and how to deal with change. It taught me patience and how to be disciplined and highly organized. Every summer after that I'd work a different job at the bank, from data entry to teller to loan officer. I've been in the banking industry ever since, 34 years later."