Marianne Paton A sluggish economy hasn’t slowed the career of island resident Millissa Cook as she was recently promoted to personal banker at the Bank of America Pine Island branch.

Having moved up the ladder at remarkable speed, Millissa Cook is now among the personal bankers employed by Bank of America. Cook only began working at the Pine Island branch two years ago when she was first hired as a part-time teller.

“Prior to coming to the bank, I helped my husband with his business, but when the economy began to decline and my kids were all in school I decided it was time to look for a career,” said Cook. “I have had prior experience working for a mortgage company as a loan officer and been doing business most of my life at Bank of America, so I thought it would be a good fit.”

Cook lives on Pine Island with her husband who owns and operates Crews Remodeling and they have three children, two who attend Pine Island Elementary School.

“My parents moved to Matlacha when I was very young so I was raised here on the island. I did leave for a short period and lived in North Fort Myers but couldn’t wait to return,” Cook said. “The island is safe and peaceful and I am happy to be raising my children here. I couldn’t see living anywhere else because this is home for me.”

Among Cook’s responsibilities to customers of Bank of America is aiding them in opening new accounts and handling service loans.

“At this point, most of my clients are looking for home equity lines of credit to purchase more property. With housing prices as low as they are, those who actually do have equity in their property are looking into taking advantage of a good time to buy,” Cook said. “As for other loans, right now Bank of America has a lot of different programs. Things like the first-time buyer program and those that target special occupations such as police and firemen also are available, however, we continue to take a careful look at the loans we do make and are sure to follow local and government guidelines to ensure that the loans we make are good loans.”

According to Cook, business at the bank continues to grow even with the current state of the economy.

“Bank of America is holding up well even if it is not reflected that way in the media. We have continued to watch our spending and we always have had stringent guidelines when it comes to loans,”said Cook. “While business may not be growing as quickly as we would like, it has continued to grow steadily and I look forward to being here for a long time.”

Encouraging Cook’s progress is Bank of America Branch Manager JoAnn Catlin.

“Millissa is a true home-grown island girl and is a hard-working, self-made person. She is very knowledgeable and this has aided to how it was that she was able to move up the ladder very quickly,” said Catlin. “It also helps in that because she is an islander, she is very friendly and can talk just as easily to the year-round residents as well as the snowbirds. She has been great for business.”

Catlin also said that nearly all of her tellers are residents of Pine Island and while Bank of America is a large national banking system, her branch has the feel of a true home-town bank.

“We do our best to help out in the community any way we can. Not only are we members of the Pine Island Chamber of Commerce, we have made donations to organizations like the Matlacha Hookers who use our parking lot each winter for their yard sale, and we try to accommodate any of the organizations in any way we can,” Catlin said.

The Pine Island Bank of America branch is located at 5041 Pine Island Road, just east of the island center. For more information, call the bank at 282-2050.