called me mid-June and said what are you doing today? And I didn’t have a lot going on so we did a nice long walk around the Capitol that day and it was beautiful and he said, I don’t know what we want you to do, but we want you to come work for the bank. I’m an attorney by trade, so I think they wanted me to come on to grow our footprint here in Bismarck, grow our influence here, and then I could do some legal work in corporate council and external affairs first international bank & Trust
addition. It’s a unique hybrid that I’m so thankful an organization like this will make room for, and it fits my personality quite well.”
How did you get to where you are now? “I started at the bank five and a half years ago
Why are you involved in the community outside of your job?
in the summer of 2016. I came to Bismarck in
“Well, FOMO mostly. From a practical level, I
2012, and I worked at the Capitol, then moved
think everything that we do is relationship based
over to the Attorney General’s office where I
and so I mean it’s essentially basic math. It’s
was the attorney for the Bank of North Dakota.
grow relationships. From those relationships
I took a stint in politics, and the campaign
you find the opportunities, and from those
rented from the bank. Well, my wife also works
opportunities you grow the community, and
for First International, my girlfriend at the
that’s just something that fulfills me personally.”
time, so for the longest time I was a campaign of one, so I needed some human interaction if you could imagine. So I would go over to the bank and visit pretty consistently, grew to know everybody over there. David Mason
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BISMARCK MAGAZINE | MARCH-APRIL 2022
How is First International Bank & Trust helping the community? “Our vision that we’ve talked about in Bismarck in particular at First International is to be the