Scott was only 14 when he began his career with Wells Fargo. The National Bank of Alaska, which later became a part of Wells Fargo, was offering a Bank On U program that gave high-school students on-the-job training. Scott worked two hours every day after school, answering phones, filing and making copies.

A door opened for Scott when he was asked to work a day in the vault. He could now see a different area of the bank, and he decided to move to a teller position for his next two school years. During that time, a good operations manager encouraged him to learn more by reading teller standards and completing the three different levels. He took the advice, getting a little raise in pay after each level completed. Scott laughed as he recalled, “The other tellers would see this 16-year-old kid working on these standards, and they decided they should do the same thing.” Scott also started thinking about college and what to do after high school. He remembers thinking, “Gee, this isn’t too bad a place to work. There are so many advancement opportunities.”

In Scott’s senior year, he worked in the Central Customer Service Department (now the Phone Bank) as a customer service representative. Again, a manager explained the levels of accomplishment available to him; so he started reading the policies and procedures, then testing out to advance to the next level. By the end of the year Scott was a CSR III.

High school ended, and so did his Bank On U classification. Because he had successfully completed the program, he was awarded a college scholarship. He took a job as a personal banker and began his college courses at night. He then crossed over to Home Mortgage, to become a loan officer.

In 2003 Scott’s former branch manager called to say that a store manager position was opening at the Midtown Wall-Mart location. He thought Scott would be a good fit. Scott applied for the job and has been that store manager for two years now, even though he’s only 21 years old!

When asked what has motivated him during his seven-year career at Wells Fargo, he said, without hesitation, “My managers. All along the way they were very encouraging.” But Scott also looked for – and took advantage of – Wells Fargo training opportunities. “Policy manuals were just sitting there,” he said. Scott thinks those manuals, available to anyone in those jobs, are an invaluable way of learning one’s current job and working toward advancement. In addition, Scott has availed himself of other training opportunities to learn sales-and-service skills and accounting.

When asked if he’ll ever leave Wells Fargo, Scott quickly said, “I don’t see why I would.” When asked if his mother is proud of him, he just as quickly replied, “My mom raves about me.”