As one of the state’s largest employers, Zions Bank and its parent company, Zions Bancorporation, have nearly 4,000 employees in Utah.
But none of them of them has been with the bank longer than Spanish Fork resident Cheris Losee.
On March 18, Losee, a personal banker at the Spanish Fork branch, said goodbye to a nearly 49-year career with Zions Bank.
Since joining Zions Bank on June 1, 1971, she has interacted with thousands of customers over half a century, most of them in Spanish Fork. Besides a five-year period when administrative duties took her to Provo, Losee has been a fixture and client favorite at the Main Street office from the beginning.
“She knows everyone, and it’s not just that she knows their banking needs, she knows them personally,” said Amy Morris, assistant manager of the Spanish Fork branch.
“She knows their children, she knows their grandchildren; what they’ve done in their life, what their needs are.”
Losee first dipped her toes in banking in the fall of 1969 when as a high school senior she was part of a group of students selected to work at a local business.
She was given part-time work at the Bank of Spanish Fork, which was in the process of being acquired by Zions First National Bank.
Rural banking stalwart Wallace Gardner, president of Bank of Spanish Fork, and Roy Simmons, president and CEO of Zions First National Bank, worked out the arrangements for the deal on a napkin over lunch.
Losee left the bank after high school graduation to attend Brigham Young University on a scholarship.
She returned to banking a year later and rejoined Zions Bank’s Bank of Spanish Fork branch on June 1, 1971.
By that time, the branch had moved directly across the street to a new building at 190 North Main Street. With three drive-thru teller lines, the building served a steady stream of Spanish Fork residents, including a woman who regularly rode through on horseback.
Over the decades, she filled a series of roles that touched almost every area of the branch, including administrative, customer accounts, and commercial, agricultural, mortgage and installment lending.
Losee spent the last two decades of her career as a personal banker, desked in almost the same spot, helping clients open accounts and take out loans.
“We love Cheris here in Spanish Fork,” Morris said. “It will be a learning curve not having her in the branch, not only for us as employees but also for the community.”
Luckily, Losee doesn’t plan to go far.
She’ll have more time to watch her granddaughter’s softball games, and to spend with her grandsons and sons, who also live locally. (Serve Daily submission.)
