Another unique endeavor by Steve was his Weatherby rifle promotion.\u00a0\u00a0If you’ve read outdoor magazines over the years you may have seen an advertisement from the Bank of Boulder offering you a rifle in lieu of interest if you deposited your money with them.\u00a0\u00a0The rifle was worth much more than the interest would have been and customers got the rifle as soon as they made the deposit.\u00a0This got the bank deposits from every state and many foreign countries.<\/p>\n
Steve was just as concerned with the bank’s employees.\u00a0\u00a0He believed the employees were central to the bank’s success and deserved to share in that success.\u00a0\u00a0He designed a retirement plan for the employees, providing them with stock options as a benefit of their employment.\u00a0\u00a0These\u00a0allow an employee the option to buy the company’s stock at a later date but at the lower price it was when they were given the option, creating profit for the employee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most companies offering stock options give the employee about five years to buy the stock or lose the option.\u00a0\u00a0Unfortunately, not all employees can come up with the money needed to buy the stock and pay the taxes on its growth, so they lose those options and the future growth that stock would have provided.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Steve decided that defeated the purpose of helping the employees fund their retirement plans, so he designed the bank’s stock options to allow the employee up to 30 years to exercise the purchase option.\u00a0\u00a0In other words, if they waited 30 years to purchase the stock, they paid the price the stock was when they received the option, sold the stock at its current higher value, paid the taxes on its growth, and had the balance for their retirement.\u00a0\u00a0They did not have to come up with the money to buy the stock until they were ready to sell the stock.\u00a0\u00a0He designed a unique retirement plan that met the employees’ needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But what about the mother of the man in the fly shop?\u00a0\u00a0The man said that some years ago he started a small business in Boulder and applied for a loan at the Bank of Boulder where his mother had a checking account.\u00a0\u00a0She would deposit her Social Security check each month and then write so many small checks that her check numbers were in the ten thousands.\u00a0\u00a0He chuckled explaining his mother was probably not a profit center for the bank.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said that while he sat at the loan officer’s desk, he looked across the expanse of the bank lobby and saw Steve working at his desk.\u00a0\u00a0He became uneasy as my brother repeatedly looked up from his desk and stared at him.<\/p>\n
Finally, Steve pushed back from his desk, walked out of his office and across the bank directly toward him, the man certain my brother was going to deny his loan.\u00a0\u00a0As my brother approached him he extended his hand to shake hands saying, “Hello, my name is Steve Bosley.\u00a0\u00a0You’re Beulah’s son, aren’t you?”\u00a0<\/p>\n
This story says everything about my brother’s values.\u00a0\u00a0It isn’t the race or the rifle promotion or the retirement plan that defines who Steve is.\u00a0\u00a0Rather, the importance he places on people defines who he is.\u00a0\u00a0He takes time to get to know people, to know Beulah, even though she may have been the bank’s smallest customer.\u00a0\u00a0He understood his “job,” he understood customers, he understood employees, he understood service, he understands simple kindness and caring.<\/p>\n
How much happier might we be if we cared enough to take the time to get to know the Beulah’s in our lives?<\/p>\n
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