Karissa Wikert was enjoying her work at the University of Iowa Alumni Association in marketing and project management when her mentor saw the job posting for the position of club director at Hills Bank & Trust Company and brought it to her attention. "I felt like it was written for me," she says, and she just had to apply. She accepted the position four years ago, and the time has flown by since replacing the founding club director of thirty years. "HCI is one reason for the confidence that I now have," she says. Her attendance at Peer Group in 2016 and Fall Forum the following year, "made me feel validated and introduced new processes" necessary to do the job. "After coming back from Peer Group, I had a much better idea of how to move forward and implement new procedures for aspects of the job that aren't available anywhere else." "Plus," she says, "it gives you the ability to run ideas past peers and helps to encourage you in your job." HCI has provided Karissa with a sounding board and assurance that has contributed to her and her team's efforts in growing the club and keeping it relevant to its 14,000 members.

And, her members are telling others. Word of mouth marketing is going very well for them since Karissa took the original Ambassador Referral Program, and "put it on steroids." Now, it offers many amazing perks with great prizes, like a drawing to win $1,000. Her members have to work hard to recruit others, but they do it in order to get the terrific rewards.

Her members are extremely grateful for Karissa and the Friends Club. Frequently, Karissa will hear a member say, "This is why I left the house today" to attend a local or branch event. She loves having a job that enables her to provide great programming that gives her members the opportunity to get together with others and have a good time with other Friends Club members. She also offers many tours for her members. In 2019, they will have 13 trips. With so much going on, Karissa was able to hire some coordinators to help her. Both, Meg Sinnott and Chelsea Marsengill will be attending Peer Group in Sarpy County in March. We are excited to meet them soon.

Here are some fun facts about Karissa who grew up in a town of 500 in Iowa. She used to live 5 houses down from Wrigley Field, which her brothers thought finally made her cool.   She developed a love for travel when she was in college and served as a camp counselor for 10 weeks in Germany where she toured Europe on the weekends. During one of those adventures, she was peer-pressured into skydiving from a small plane in Switzerland which was unbelievable, but terrifying!