Hansen ending 39-year career, Moural stepping in
A passing of the baton will transpire this week at Pinnacle Bank in Aurora with long-time vice president and mortgage loan officer Robin Hansen retiring from banking while Butch Moural of Grand Island steps in to fill that role.
Hansen’s last day at the downtown bank will be Friday, ending a 39-year career at Pinnacle which started in 1985. The Marquette native started as a teller and bookkeeper and has filled various roles over the years, focusing the last 15 years or so on mortgage lending.
“It’s changed a lot,” Hansen said of the banking regulations involving real estate purchases. “It’s made it a little more difficult, as a lot more details and documents have to be gathered. The compliance has magnified, which makes it more difficult for people to get a loan. When you can get them through it’s good for everybody, so we try to get everybody happy in the end.”
Hansen said she felt fortunate to be working in a community where the housing market remained relatively strong over the years, avoiding some of the fallout seen in larger markets.
“I don’t feel like the housing has ever really been hit here like they talk about on the news,” she shared. “It’s been good here.”
Though she expects to miss her role in helping people reach their housing goals, she said she is excited about what lies ahead.
“I’m retiring from banking but I’ll do a part-time job, just to be more available for my grandkids,” she said, noting that her two children have given her five grandkids now between the ages of 18 months and 7 years, of which live in the area. “We have great people in the community and everybody seems to kind of work together to make things happen. It’s the relationships that I will miss, but I hope to see people on the street. We’ll still be around.”
Hansen and her husband Steve, who works as a technician at Hamilton Telecommunications, live in rural Hamilton County.
Wade Regier, president of the Pinnacle Bank branch in Aurora, thanked Hansen for her service and noted that she had an impact on the community.
“Robin has been an integral part of Pinnacle Bank’s success in Aurora as an employee 39 of the 55 years under Dinsdale management,” Regier said. “Robin has been a leader within the mortgage market over the past couple decades and is a very respected banker within our community. Her customer service and relationships with our partners has been exemplary for the rest of our staff and her commitment to Pinnacle Bank has been exceptional. We will truly miss her and wish her nothing but the best in semi-retirement.”
Butch Moural joined the Pinnacle Bank team in February, transitioning from a similar role with First National Bank of Omaha in Grand Island. He is new to the Aurora workforce, but very familiar with the community as his brother, Curt Moural, and his family have lived in Aurora for many years.
“I’ve gotten to know a lot of people here through my brother and his wife,” he said. “Plus, my wife Tina is from the Hampton area so she knows a lot of folks in this area as well.”
Tina (Wittulski) works as a full-time esthetician with Nebraska Functional Medicine in Grand Island.
A native of the Schuyler/Columbus area, Moural worked in men’s retail clothing for many years before shifting to the banking industry, which he said provided invaluable experience and perspective.
“I learned a ton of work ethic and everything from my parents growing up on a farm, but living in town and understanding the retail industry, the business side of it, was huge for me,” he said.
Moural joined Platte Valley State Bank 25 years ago as a teller manager and eventually became a mortgage loan officer for the same bank, which became affiliated with First National Bank of Omaha.
“The mortgage crisis hit in 2012, which made compliance regulations a lot harder for banks,” he recalled. “That’s when I just kind of climbed the ladder, going to commercial and ag lending for about four years, but I missed the retail side of doing things so nine years later I got into mortgage lending.
“The mortgage crisis in 2012 has really changed what we have to collect, and some of that was for the better but some of it you just scratch your head at why we have to get it, but rules are rules,” he said, adding to Hansen’s perspective on changes in the industry. “Everyone’s American dream is to own your own home and that’s our role, to fulfill it.”
What enticed Moural to Aurora and Pinnacle Bank was his long-time friendship with Regier, whom he said he has known personally for several years.
“It’s a family-owned bank in the Midwest, which was extremely important, it’s highly involved in the community and we can also do a little more thinking outside the box here. We can do anything with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we can still look at possibly doing some stuff right here in-house and that was very enticing to me.”
Moural said he and his wife, who have six children and five grandchildren between them, plan to eventually move out of Grand Island and plan to stay in the Aurora area, which is the center of both their families.