Published July 2003

Cascade tops list of best companies to work for

By Bryan Corliss
Herald Business Writer

Cascade Bank chief executive Carol Nelson thinks that making nice leads to making money.

If so, the strategy could be paying off. Cascade was named Washington’s best midsize company to work for in the June issue of Washington CEO magazine.

“It’s really quite stunning to us,” Nelson said.

Cascade was the largest of four Snohomish County companies to make the magazine’s annual list of top companies to work for. The others — all in the small company category — were Terra Resource Group of Everett, a staffing company that is a previous winner of the award; Datalight of Bothell, a software developer; and Jeff’s Auto Repair of Lynnwood.

The companies were assessed in nine areas by employees and a panel of independent judges. Only those companies that submitted entries were considered.

Cascade earned particularly high scores from its employees in seven of the nine categories — communication, supervision and decision-making, performance standards, benefits, leadership, work environment and hiring and retention.

That’s gratifying, Nelson said. Cascade has undergone some sweeping internal changes in the two years since she took over as president and chief executive from Frank McCord, finishing the conversion from a thrift to a full-service commercial bank and bringing in a number of new executives and managers to execute the new plan.

Through that, the bank’s leadership team tried hard to “be sensitive to our employees,” Nelson said. “It’s paid off,” she said. “It’s fun. We’re having a blast.”

It’s not all about fun and games, said Nelson, who said she believes that happy employees deliver pleasing results.

Cascade has succeeded financially in recent years. At the end of 2002, Cascade reported $509 million in deposits, up 21 percent; and $81 million in net income, up 44 percent over a year earlier.

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