Kim Brender celebrates 35 years with Wells Fargo Bank

When a business says that its employees make the difference, there is no finer example to back up that statement than Kim Brender, the Service Manager of Omak’s Wells Fargo Bank. Brender recently celebrated her 35th year as a member of the Wells Fargo team and during that time has become the familiar face of reassurance for many bank customers.
Brender has been an Okanogan resident since she was three years old, and her parents, Levi and Sally Toulouse still live there. She graduated Okanogan High School and attended Kinman Business University in Spokane where she studied to be a legal secretary.
Brender began her banking career in 1982 with State Mutual Savings Bank. State was purchased by United Bank in 1984 and United was acquired by InterWest of Oak Harbor in 1985. Brender started as a teller, worked up to New Accounts and was promoted to Operations Manager in 1990. That remains her current role with the new title of Service Manager.
InterWest merged with North Central Washington Bank in 1996 which in 2000 changed its name to Pacific NorthWest Bank and then to Wells Fargo in 2004.
Husband, Jeff, is a retired banker and more recently retired as the manager of the North Central Washington Business Fund. Daughter Nicole Tribou, 33, is a ParaPro at North Omak Elementary School. Younger daughter, Jordan, 26, is a Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CAN) at three Rivers Hospital in Brewster. Stepson Nick Brender lives in Issaquah with his family and stepdaughter Kelsey live with her family in Bellingham.
Brender brings the same level of dedication and energy to a variety of community services. She is a member of the Omak High School Advisory Committee, a board member at Care Net Pregnancy Center, and on the finance Committee of her church.
“My greatest passion is I am on the board of the St. Nicholas Christmas Program,” said Brender who has served on the board since 1998. “It is 100 percent volunteer and 100 percent community donation.”
St. Nicholas provides an outfit, toy and Christmas dinner for families that might otherwise go without during the holidays. The program gets its referrals from various entities and spends November and December shopping, wrapping and delivering the
In 2016 St. Nicholas served 106 families and more than 300 children, Brender said.
“It takes lots of passion and energy and although I am tired when it is done, I love it,” said Brender. “I love seeing the looks of the children’s faces when we bring the presents in.”
Brender even turned a recent hobby into a community asset.
Two years ago, I learned to crochet,” said Brender. “I have had fun making hats for people and for Head Start where my daughter used to work. I love to make them and give them away.”
During her years in the baking industry Brender has witnessed some of the ups and downs in the national financial sector like the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-09 and locally with the state’s two largest wildfires in 2014-15.
“We did feel the crunch,” said Brender of the financial meltdown. “There was not much building going on,” said Brender adding that she was saddened to see some people lose their homes because of the structure of their loans.
“We had lots of customers from the Methow and Carlton area and Malott that lost their homes.” Said Brender of the wildfires. “We were helping them with their insurance check and helping them through with getting everything ready to rebuild as quickly as we could.”
Brender was also a stabilizing presence when Wells Fargo nationwide was hit with accusations of opening more than a million fake accounts last fall.
“We did have customers who came and asked questions,” said Brender. “We reassured them we had not opened accounts they did not want or need.”
 Brender also explained the extra security and online measures the bank added to protect consumers.
“We had some account closures but not really as many as there could have been,” said Brender whose long affiliation with the local branch helped reassure her customers.
“Growing up and serving customers in a community where you live is so important,” said Brender. “You are always the face of Wells Fargo.”
The high regard the Omak business community has for Brender was evident in her selection as the Chamber of Commerce 2016 Citizen of the Year.
“This one surprised me and humbled me,” said Brender. “They talked about how long I had worked at the bank, cited my volunteerism. I felt very special.”

As for future plans, Brender said that retirement is not on her radar right now.
“I really enjoy what I do and the people I work with, said Brender. “When you enjoy what you do it does not seem like work.”
Brender does have one item on her bucket list, however, and that is” to go to Toulouse, France which is where my heritage is.”