Joel Hickman

Hickman builds on career of connecting with others

From his first job, Joel Hickman learned the value of connection.

When he was 8 years old, he began caddying at a public golf course where his father played, lugging around the bags of high-net-worth individuals. Not only did he learn the game, playing on caddy days, he paid attention to the players he caddied for.

“I think what I learned from those early jobs … it was the ability to build a relationship and rapport with people regardless of what level of economics and what the demographics were,” Hickman said, recalling those early days. “And in that, whether rich man, poor man, whatever, was just being able to build rapport and listen.”

In a way, Hickman is where he is today because of the game of golf.

Born and raised in Seattle, Hickman was a mischievous neighborhood kid but found focus and direction with golf. When he was a senior in high school, having played on the school team since he was a freshman, he had planned to attend University of Washington in Seattle on a golf scholarship.

That same year, 1975, Title Nine was enacted and scholarships were revoked. Hickman and two of his buddies made the decision to hop in the car and drive to Boise to play in the John Dropping Memorial golf tournament at Hillcrest. Because of how well he played, Hickman was offered a golf scholarship at Boise State University.

He signed on without consulting his parents or first-year law student brother.

“I drove back to Seattle and I told [my brother] I’d signed, and he goes, ‘Are you insane? Why didn’t you have someone review that contract?’” Hickman recalled. “I said, ‘John, it’s a three-page document. The letters were very big, very easy to read. And unless you were going to pony up some money for me to go on to college, I took it.’”

His major at BSU was nowhere near related to his current field of work, as he wanted to be a coach and teacher, having been inspired by his love of sports and his mother who was a librarian.

There was only one thing that kept him from becoming a full-fledged teacher: Kids.

“I was an education major for a semester and a half,” Hickman said. At that time, Boise School District had an operational school on the BSU campus and education majors could do real-life classroom training with actual students. He took on an elementary school class.

“I got eaten up by those kids,” he said. “Man. They just tore me. They were sweet kids. Don’t get me wrong. … I made a decision that second semester and went to my counselor and got into business, and I came out with a degree in marketing with a minor in economics.”

During his college years, Hickman took about four classes over the years taught by Richard “Dick” Payne, who Hickman described as “dynamic,” and who opened the young man’s eyes to the financial world.

But one of the main reasons Hickman stayed in Idaho came when he met Payne’s neighbor and a fellow schoolmate his junior year: Marianne. She was an accounting major. The two graduated in December of 1979 and were married in April of 1980.

Though Marianne had four interviews and four offers straight out of college, Hickman said he had between 20 and 25 interviews. Eventually, he landed a job in the consumer finance industry.

“I spent four years in the consumer finance industry, and I’ll tell you what, the best thing ever happened to me,” Hickman said. “It’s not as fancy as banking, but it taught me … they gave you a desk and you went out and hustled.”

That hustle and his ability to form relationships led him to the mortgage business and eventually into banking.

“I have been the luckiest guy around each stop that I made,” Hickman said. “In the early part of my career, I just worked with really good people, and I was given some great opportunities.”

The longtime banker recalled “fighting” for every pieces of business in the early 1980s, learning from every position he held and building on his knowhow. Consumer loans, mortgage lending and working with failing businesses were all educational and experiential assets as he grew in his career.

Eventually, he was told about an opportunity at Idaho Bank and Trust (now KeyBank). He interviewed with the bank’s president, Mike Mooney, who is now retired, and the two hit it off.

“I interviewed with Mike and we just seemed to connect,” Hickman said. “He hired me and I said, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ He says, ‘I don’t know yet, but I know that you’re someone we want here at the bank.’”

That was in 1987. Fourteen years later, Mooney left the company and a nationwide search for his replacement ensued. Eventually, that led back to Nampa where Hickman worked. He spent his career with the bank as a branch manager, a business banker, a private banker and finally district president.

After 25 years, he left the bank in 2012. After a couple of short-lived jobs at US Bank and Saint Alphonsus, Hickman helped co-found Boise Valley Economic Partnership, and was approached to take on the role of Chief Banking Officer at Idaho Trust Bank. At that time, he was still at Saint Al’s.

He was approached by brothers Daniel and Thomas Prohaska.

“He says, ‘We’re offering you a job.’ I said, ‘I have a job.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but it’s in health care and you’re a banker … it’s time for you to get back into banking.’”

For four years, Hickman was the CBO, then became the president of Idaho Trust’s private banking for another four years. At 67, he decided he wanted to retire, despite his passion for the financial world. But that would not be the end of his career in finance.

“They go, ‘No, no. You are not retiring. We have a new position for you.’ ‘Oh, my god. What now?’”

Hickman’s latest role, at 69, is the senior relationship and business development officer, wherein he keeps doing what he’s always done, building and developing those all-important relationships and coaching the younger generation on being strong, people-focused bankers.

All these years later, the teaching and coaching he was first passionate about when entering college are still at play.

“Teaching skills are directly linked to successful leadership in the workplace,” Hickman said. “When working in a business, the first priority is getting the team to buy into a common vision. That makes achieving your goals and building a strong team that much easier. And what teachers are really good at is communicating with their students. In banking, if you aren’t communicating across your lines of business, you are headed towards failure. … I learned and retained more by watching someone and learning from them. And that, to me, is the fun part of mentoring: Working with someone who is committed to be the best and sharing with them your experiences, not doing the work for them, but guiding them and providing the proper resources to succeed.”