Hi! Today, Beth Drum, Senior Vice President from Alpine Bank, is with us to talk about the Green Team and what Alpine Bank has done to improve its sustainability profile. So thank you Beth for being here. Thank you John. One of the neat things about Alpine Bank is the Green Team and all the great work you folks have been doing on sustainability. Can you give us some background on the Green Team and how it formed and what it's done and where it is now? Sure, and thank you for having me here today. The Green Team was really a fun effort, very organic. It was a few employees back in 2005 that started to recognize that Alpine Bank, as an organization, should be and could be better about our environmental practices. And you can only imagine being a bank like paper reduction. How much paper and loan documents that we would go through. So you know it was really a small group of employees that said we need to start being better stewards of our environment. And we live in such a beautiful part of our state, of our nation. And it was very important. And they were very passionate about it. So they put a plan together, they had a vision and they went up to senior management and said this is what we'd like to do. And they had strong support from the beginning back in 2005 for it. That's great. That's great. There's lots of branches, you're on the what we call the Western Slope largely, although you're moving over to Denver, the front range. How do you coordinate across all of those, this Green Team, was it just in one branch or did you folks work simultaneously in different places? Well, yes and no. You can imagine that we have 38 locations now. So communication is important and it's challenging. And the Green Team consists of every single Alpine Bank employee. So all 600 employees are a Green Team member. So it is a challenge to communicate to every employee at Alpine Bank what our green business practices are. Training is important. We have a good internal system. So there's a lot of e-mailing going back and forth but we have an internal newsletter if you will. And we communicate a lot about our initiatives through that to our employees. We also go through annual training every year. It's a requirement for every employee to go through Green Team training. The institution made a huge commitment then, to this. Yes. Yes. What are some of the things that have actually transpired because of the Green Team and its initiatives? You know, we have a strong purchasing policy. And you know, that's something that everybody can do. You start looking at the products that you're cleaning with and using in your organization. And so we put in environmental purchasing policy together and we look for products that reduce our impact on our environment. And we relay that information down to our third party vendors and our custodial group in our maintenance department. We bought all recyclable trash cans. Every desk has a recyclable trash can and you'll see the actual trash portion is only about this thick. The larger part of the trash can is the recycled part. We host shred days in all of our areas for our communities, free shred days. You know what, it was interesting John, because back in 2005, I have to admit, I didn't think about recycling necessarily. I was like, yes the right thing to do. But when you start making it an everyday practice and as simple as taking your soda pop can or your water bottle to the recycle bin, you start to change that behavior. And that's the responsibility of every employee at Alpine Bank. And we saw those little baby steps become huge into today, where we're going around and every one of our locations, you know, you change out the light bulbs and we're changing out all the light bulbs to LED. We've invested a lot in our HVAC systems. We've built gold standard buildings, LEED certified buildings, so it's an investment. But in the long run, it's the right thing to do. The Green Team's had a huge impact. They have. From a small group of people of employees to now, you know, an executive team kind of marching along with us. That's neat. It's fun. Now, Alpine Bank is employee-owned. Does that make a difference, do you think? I think it makes a huge difference. We all show up every day at work, invested in making a difference in our communities, helping our customers, and yeah it's huge. To be employee-owned, you know everybody says "why are you locally owned?" And I very proudly always say oh yes. And further we're employee-owned, not just locally owned. So I think it makes a huge difference. You're invested in what you do everyday right? Whether it's being green, volunteering, or helping a customer. I want to pursue the community part of this because often we think of, and you just mentioned you know, the HVAC systems and LED lights, energy and environment and what. But in fact, community is huge. And you folks do a lot of outreach. And as a kind of a caveat here or an admission, our daughter got good grades once and you gave her a cash award for that. And it meant a lot. I mean it it makes a little girl in junior high want to study and now she's studying engineering and that's kind of cool. But you do a lot of things in the community. Could you talk a little bit about that? You know, I've been with Alpine Bank for 20 years and I always say I think I have one of the best jobs at the bank because a lot of my focus is on community development. And the bank, early on, realized that you know, the community can affect the bottom line. But we look at it and say that community is our bottom line. Our success is really only a reflection of our communities' success and our customers' success. So again, it's the right thing to do. We live here, we play here, we work here, and we're a part of the community that we all serve. The Pays for A's Program is a fun program that's been around, gosh, for 25 plus years. And you know kids get awarded all the time for their athletic abilities. And not so often are they recognized for their good grades. That's right. And nerds do not rule turns out in the sports page of the newspaper that's pretty clear. Right! So we've had a lot of fun with our Pays for A's Program. As a matter of fact, one of our employees in Durango, he went through our management trainee program and now he's Vice President at the bank, he's a lender, Nick Johnson. And he proudly remembers the day that he won Pays for A's, as like as a second grader in Basalt, Colorado. So that's fun. Incredible! That's really neat. That's great. The class that this video is going to be part of is designed for people who are starting out in their careers and they'd like to help their companies or organizations be better. What skills do you recommend people have to be sustainable business change agents, to make a difference in their organization? Patience. You know to be a change agent is a challenge. And you're going to hit obstacles, you're probably going to get 'no'. You're probably going to get 'It's too expensive'. 'How is it going to be good for our bottom line?' You know, kind of all those standard questions. But I think if you have the vision and the passion, and a really well laid out plan, I would just say continue to ask, continue to push it forward. But do have some patience and look at taking small steps. We can't be big change agents overnight and that's where I say, you know, I'm proud of how ours at our Alpine Bank evolved with a small group of people that said 'hey, you know I'm driving 30 miles to work every day. I don't need to work at an office. My job doesn't need to be at an office. Why don't I cut back and only drive to work two times a week? Or why don't I carpool? Or actually if I moved closer to town, I could ride my bike or walk to work.' You know you start looking at those smaller steps of how you can be a change agent and not have really great big expectations to do it overnight. And I think the other thing I would say is have fun with it. You got to continue to have fun. Yeah, there's a lot of environmentalism that's pretty grumpy. We're serious, right? Right! Well, there's is a doom and gloom aspect to it, I guess. Absolutely there is. But I think everybody, you can't be a change agent by yourself. Everybody can't be. But persistence and patience are important. So in terms of the Green Team and aspirations, what are some of the exciting things you see happening today at Alpine Bank and what would you dream for in the future in terms of its sustainability profile? I guess for the Green Team, I hope it's always a part of our culture at Alpine Bank and I can't see where it won't be. We've been recognized statewide for a lot of awards and we did accomplish an ISO 1401 certification. It's an international certification that, as far as I understand, we are still the only financial institution in the nation, if not the world, that has achieved this. And I hope that we still will always continue to have that certification. As employees and shareholders at the bank, it's important. As far as the future Green Team, I think we just have to continue to look for opportunities in each one of our own communities of how we can continue to be strong environmental stewards. You know, one of the neat things I think that maybe came out of the Green Team is your sustainability report. I actually have a copy of it here. Oh good! Good. And so, you know, the value of reporting is huge because it tells you where you were and how you're improving. It does. And we put out this environment report annually. It is on recycled paper. We don't print many. It's also online. But achieving the ISO 1401 certification does hold Alpine Bank and the Green Team accountable. We are audited annually to make sure that we are doing what we say we're doing. You know, I referred to the LED lights, reducing our renewable energy and our purchasing policy, making sure we're using those environmental products. And the other part of the audit is making sure that each employee knows what Alpine Bank's green policy is. And that's stated here in this report, as well. So I think, you know, the certification holds us accountable which is really important. Again, it kind of goes back to that employee-owner piece where you show up every day invested in what you're doing and you're held accountable for it. Beth, thanks so much for spending time with us. That was a great. I appreciate your insights and I thank you for my daughter. Like I say, I hope that she finishes her engineering program and part of it was because of the support you gave her early on. Your very welcome. Thank you for the opportunity.
