Pub. 2 2014 Issue 4

www.uba.org 18 Bank Kudos BANK OF AMERICAN FORK BANK OF AMERICAN FORK’S STRIDES IN PROTECTING SENIORS AND CARE- GIVERS SPARKING NATIONAL PUSH Tracey Larson, vice president and special projects manager at Bank of American Fork, accepted the 2014 American Bankers Association Community Commitment Award for Protecting Older Americans, from John Ikard, American Bankers Association chairman, on behalf of Bank of American Fork in Dallas on October 21. Larson is also the financial representative for the Governor’s Commission on Aging and is also a member of Provo’s Elderly and Vulnerable Adult Coalition. Recently Bank of American Fork received the 2014 American Bankers Association Community Commitment Award for Protecting Older Americans. Bank of American Fork has a unique passion and five-part initiative designed to help sup- port caregivers and protect seniors from fraud. “There was a shift for me that caused me to become really passionate about supporting age-friendly banking,” said Trac- ey Larson, the head of the bank’s age-friendly initiative. “It was when I started to hear the stories.” Besides her passion for making banking and finance safe for seniors and their caregivers, Larson has the know-how and detailed eye that make it natural for her to move the initiative from words on paper to action in the community. For example, Bank of American Fork has an age-friendly champion at each branch who receives extra training on how to spot fraud or a stressed caregiver. Although all Bank of American Fork employees are trained to look for and report suspected fraud, the training for age-friendly champions is more comprehensive and goes far beyond what regulators require. To move prevention beyond Bank of American Fork custom- ers, the bank is collaborating with other organizations and financial institutions to make offerings like this nationwide. BANK OF AMERICAN FORK PROJECT TEDDY BEAR NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED These girl scouts got involved with Project Teddy Bear by proactively collecting hundreds of bears in their community. Sandy Dubois started Project Teddy Bear 15 years ago as a way for employees at Bank of American Fork to give back to their communities instead of giving gifts to each other during the holidays. That first year, customers, community members and bank employees donated a couple of hundred teddy bears to be taken to a family care center to be used in play therapy or for children taken from their homes and from everything they knew. Last year, during the 14th Annual Project Teddy Bear, our communities brought in more than 20,000 bears that served the children in care centers across Utah. Now, Project Teddy Bear’s national recognition from Inde- pendent Community Bankers of America’s 2014 National Community Bank Service Award will help spread the word and get more people involved in helping Utah’s children and children across the nation. “The reason this recognition is important to us is because it helps the community,” said Richard Beard, president and CEO of Bank of American Fork. “Our local communities have helped more than 73,000 children simply by getting involved. Each donation matters, because each of those bears represents an at-risk child here in Utah. n CELTIC BANK CELTIC BANK SELECTED AS A TOP WORKPLACE ALONG THE WASATCH FRONT Celtic Bank is pleased to announce that it has been selected as a Top Workplace along the Wasatch Front. The Top Workplace finalists were selected based solely on employee feed- back from a survey conducted earlier this year by Workplace Dynamics, LLP on behalf of The Salt Lake Tribune. The Salt Lake Tribune published the complete list of Top Workplaces on November 16, 2014.