Fast Facts about Lisa Passley
Lisa Passley is the vice president and director of Lifestyles at Southwest Missouri Bank in Carthage, Missouri.
Southwest Missouri Bank was founded in 1979 and is the largest locally owned community bank in southwest Missouri. The first branch opened in Carthage, followed by branches in Joplin, Neosho, Jasper and Alba. There are now 11 full-service branches. Lifestyles is the bank’s checking account with affinity travel benefits for its customers aged 50 and above.
Birthplace: Webb City, Missouri
Education: Alba High School class of 1981, one year of college at Missouri Southern University
Employment History:
• Southwest Missouri Bank, 1997–present
• JCPenney 1987–1997
Family: Passley has been married to her husband, Danny, for 43 years. They have two daughters, Lacey and Anna, and a grand-dog named Prudence June.
Hobbies: Passley loves spending time with her family, traveling and relaxing at the lake.
Lisa Passley grew up in the small town of Alba, Missouri, which only has roughly 700 residents. She married her high school sweetheart right after high school. They soon had two daughters, and Passley stayed home caring for them until they went to school.
Passley got a job in retail at a catalog return store, but after a few years, she decided she wanted to try working at a bank. She applied at Southern Missouri Bank in Alba and has been with the bank for 27 years.
“I was looking for a different job, and I turned in my application at the small branch we had in Alba,” she said. “I wanted to try something new and get into banking — something different than retail.”
Learning the Ropes
Passley worked at the tiny branch in Alba for 10 years.
“It was a great place to work and to learn,” she said. “We had to do everything because there were only a couple of us on staff. We did IRAs, CDs, loans — it was so much more than just being a bank teller.”
About 10 miles from Alba is another small town, Jasper, where Southwest Missouri Bank has another branch managed by the same person who ran the Alba location.
“The bank in Jasper hired a woman who had previously worked at another bank in their affinity travel program,” said Passley. “She started Lifestyles, incorporated it into all of Southwest Missouri Bank’s branches, and the program just exploded.”
Building the Lifestyles Brand
The Lifestyles program started with ladies’ high teas and special events, then graduated into day trips. Passley jumped in to help, going to the events and escorting clients on trips. She transferred to the main branch of the bank in Carthage, where Lifestyles was based, and had worked there for roughly five years when her predecessor announced her retirement. Passley was the logical successor and worked under the other Lifestyles coordinator for about a year learning to put together trips and plan events.
“We host monthly birthday parties for our clients; we have lunch and learns with banking themed talks; we have a Christmas party; we host a golf tournament every year; and we take at least one day trip a month and three or four extended overnight trips per year,” said Passley. “We take a grandparents and grandkids trip every year, too, and our clients are allowed to bring guests, which oftentimes encourages them to start banking with us because they have so much fun — it’s our best advertisement. There’s no requirement to be part of Lifestyles except a Lifestyles checking account.”
Hitting the Road
One of the first overnight trips Passley planned on her own was a success beyond her wildest expectations. Her customers had been requesting an American Queen riverboat cruise on the Mississippi from New Orleans to Memphis, so she started to plan one.
“When I spoke to the riverboat tour company, they told me they would book me 22 spaces,” she said. “I was so nervous, thinking I wouldn’t be able to fill that many. I did a presentation at 3 p.m. and one at 6 p.m., and by the time both programs were over, I had 78 people registered for the trip! After that, I had to cap the number of participants to 30 — there wasn’t enough time to chat with everyone, and that was the largest group I’ve ever taken.”
Passley’s trips stay domestic because, she says, there are so many beautiful things to explore right here in our own backyard. She’s taken groups to the Adirondacks and Lake Placid in upstate New York; the Hudson River Valley and the Hamptons; and on a 10-day excursion to the National Parks and Monuments in Utah and Arizona. She’s taken groups to Branson, Missouri, for gospel music shows and has plans to bring a group to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in October for its famed balloon festival.
“There are so many eye-opening things that happen on a trip, great things that happen,” she said. “There’s so much to see. I feel really blessed that I work for Southwest Missouri Bank and they let me treat my customers the way we do. We truly know our customers and want to take care of them.”
Destination Faves
1. Richland, Washington: Richland is the town where Manhattan Project workers lived in government-built homes. I took a tour that included lunch (in metal lunchboxes), and a tour of the Reach Museum. A very hands-on way of learning about our history.
2. Moab National Park: Hell’s Revenge UTV ride is an absolute must when in Moab!
3. Lake Placid, New York: Absolutely stunning in the fall! Beautiful lake, Olympic Center and jumping complex. There is so much more to New York than New York City!
