Friendly Faces of Vision: Austyn Fowler
Viking, Alberta
“Everybody who walks through the door here, we all know by their first name. You don’t get that anywhere else. We’re kind of like a little family here.”
Meet Austyn, branch manager of Vision’s Viking branch. He grew up farming alongside his dad and brother on the land that’s been in his family since 1927. With 4,000 acres and 300 head of cattle, evenings and weekends are spent working the land.
But weekdays? That’s all about people.
Learn about Austyn’s journey from full-time farming to financial services at Vision, where he’s found not just a career, but a community in Viking.
Tell us about the journey that brought you to Vision.
I went to Lakeland College when I graduated high school and got my business diploma there. That brought me to working at a chartered bank, where I lasted less than a year. I swore I would never go back to banking after that because it left such a sour taste in my mouth, so I went back to working at the farm full-time.
A little while later, a lady named Terry Sullivan, who had worked at Vision for 25 years or more, convinced me to come for an interview. I got hired as a loans officer and haven’t looked back since.
Tell us about your current role at Vision.
After a few years as loans officer, I worked my way up to branch manager. Basically, my day-to-day is helping everyone else in the branch. We’re a smaller branch, with 10 staff here currently, so I’m helping with lending, investments, phoning members and everything in between when they need it is so important to me.
What's your favourite part about working at a rural credit union?
Everybody who walks through the door here, we all know by their first name. You don’t get that anywhere else. We’re kind of like a little family here… Many conversations we have at the branch are about life outside of business. It’s great, too, because most members we have in Viking are also farmers like me.
What do you enjoy about the Viking area?
Everybody knows everybody in town. The funniest part is, everybody has a story – and if you haven’t heard it yet, you will at some point. I also love how involved everyone is in the community. Everybody at the branch has some sort of community involvement after the branch closes.
