“I just received my 10-year service award plaque,” explained Kjirstin Ringold, “and I can hardly believe it. I’ve actually worked here 11 years this July, but COVID interrupted things. The time has really flown by; it’s hard to believe I’ve been here that long already.”
Kjirstin is a loan operations support specialist at Grand Rapids State Bank, a promotion she earned in March 2020. She was happy to learn from one of the bank’s longest-tenured employees, Jo-Ellen Borth.
“Jo-Ellen retired very recently, and I had the opportunity to work with her for several years before she left and before I had to move upstairs to be with the rest of the loan department,” said Kjirstin. “She made sure I knew how to do the job the right way. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work involved in this job, which suits me just fine.”
Kjirstin’s first job at the bank was a teller, and after a few years she took a job in Operations Support. When an opportunity to work in Loan Operations opened, she accepted that role.
“One of my responsibilities is to ‘balance the bank’ on the loan side daily. A second major duty is processing the loans, taking care of the back end work behind the scenes to ensure the loans can be approved. I finish up all the bookkeeping related to loans that have been processed each day. This includes participation loans, commercial loan maturities, and open-ended lines of credit. I also make the sure the final paperwork dealing with personal loans and installment loans is finished properly.”
Kjirstin has gravitated towards roles where she can work behind the scenes. “I like working on the back end of the loan process, and I like my coworkers. They make it much easier to come to work every day.”
Kjirstin has five children. The two oldest are out on their own, her twin girls are taking a year off from college, and the youngest son still lives at home. She and her fiancé, Jeremy, are parents to two giant dogs and two cats also.
“Sometimes the house gets a little busy,” she admitted.
Kjirstin loves being active outdoors and is an avid hunter and fisherwoman. She retired recently from softball, but her competitive instincts are now channeled into playing cornhole competitively.
“Jeremy and I are cornhole team partners,” she added, “and we enjoy traveling to tournaments throughout the state and out of state, and we have already competed in two really big tournaments out of state this year. We enjoy many of the same pastimes, and that keeps us going.”