Jan. 19—River Valley Community Bancorp recently celebrated the appointment of Liesl Schmidt as executive vice president and chief operations officer.

Schmidt grew up in Yuba City and was a Sutter High School graduate. This small-town girl went on to become the executive vice president of U.S. Bank, listed as the fifth-largest bank in the country.

While there, Schmidt was tasked with leading a sizable portion of the bank's biggest business line across 10 western states. Her responsibilities included overseeing more than 500,000 customer relationships and generating approximately $1 billion in revenue annually.

This accomplished business banker is now returning to her hometown roots, and the executives at River Valley Community Bank seem to be quite thrilled.

"I'm very pleased to have Liesl joining our team at this stage in our bank's development," said John Jelavich, River Valley's president and CEO. "Under her leadership, I am confident we will be better positioned to enhance and complement the relationship banking experience we deliver through the implementation of new deposit products, enhanced treasury management services and a digital channel that keeps pace with our customers' evolving banking technology preferences. Liesl's Northern California roots and knowledge of our markets also add to the strengths she brings to our organization."

"The board of directors is very excited to have Liesl joining the team at River Valley Community Bank," added Steve Danna, the bank's chairman of the board. "Her experience and knowledge will play a key role in helping the bank continue to deliver excellent customer service and achieve our long-term goals."

So how did a Sutter County native scale the ranks to become such a prominent financial leader?

For Schmidt, it came through a lot of hard work, dedication to self growth, and maintaining her connections through networking.

"Honestly, I was an accidental banker," laughed Schmidt. "I started as a word processor at a bank in the late 80s when I was living in Sacramento. I've always been really good with numbers so my goal was to be a CPA (certified public accountant). Over the course of time, I realized that a CPA wasn't a good fit for me because in a CPA office nobody talks and most of them are introverted. Banking became the perfect fit because I could still utilize my skill with numbers, but I could also get out and try to build up my customer base and be able to learn about different businesses along the way."

Those in the financial industry often refer to people like Schmidt as "unicorns," having a knack for both the methodical and personable sides of business. Her journey started fresh out of high school after marrying into the Air Force and spending three years of her life stationed in Japan, where she worked and earned her degree in business administration from the University of Maryland, College Park, Asian Division.

After working locally in the Sacramento area for nearly 25 years, Schmidt was promoted and moved to Redding, where she oversaw essentially all of Northern California. Three years later, she was promoted again and moved to Colorado, where she was put in charge of the "Mountain States" which included New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and parts of Utah. Two years after that, she received yet another promotion, adding in the states of California, Oregon, Washington, northern Nevada, and Idaho.

When U.S. Bank decided to reorganize the company, Schmidt opted for a package deal and took a brief sabbatical while living in Arizona. Soon enough, Jelavich with River Valley Community Bank reached out to her after a run-in with one of Schmidt's former colleagues in Reno, Nevada. Schmidt has now returned to the Yuba-Sutter region to help oversee the bank's branches in Yuba City, Grass Valley, Auburn and Marysville.

"One of the things I've learned is that it's a small world that we live in," said Schmidt. "Coming back to this area has made me realize how important it is to continue to keep that network up and stay in touch with people. It's just been so nice to have those connections, every day that I'm here, I see somebody that I haven't seen for years. I love being able to reconnect and hear about what they've been doing and what their successes are. It's been great."