Salisbury resident Mary Ziegler is celebrating 50 years at Wells Fargo with no plans for retirement.

Ziegler began her banking career April 16, 1973 working for Merchants Bank in the marketing department/personnel in Allentown.

During her career, she has moved to numerous locations throughout the Lehigh Valley and has watched the many bank mergers. “This is the sixth bank I have been with,” Ziegler said.

She has held various positions throughout her career including stenographer, trainer, administrative work, application programming, customer service, mortgages, operations supervisor, manager of transition center working with displaced workers and arranging training for employees, creating resumes and working with employers, area operations assistant and administrative assistant.

She received her bank officer title in 1995.

Throughout her career, Ziegler met many professionals just starting their careers in banking. One such young gentleman, Scott Fainor, started in record retention at Wells Fargo at age 18 and ended up as a president of National Penn Bank. Laura Haffner was a teller leader, now regional bank president for Wells Fargo.

Ziegler worked remotely for two years during the pandemic until the return to work call was issued April of 2022.

When asked why she has stayed with one employer for 50 years, Ziegler said, “I like what I’m doing. I like supporting individuals. I’m customer service to all internal branches. I stay for the people. I’ve been with many of these folks for their entire career. You just have this network. We know all of our families. I like the philosophy of the bank. The benefits, the family care time.”

Another perk for Ziegler is the Wells Fargo philosophy to be involved in your community.

“Each full-time employee is given time during the work day to work in their community,” Ziegler said. “When you record your community service time, you receive financial grants you are able to then donate to any 501c3 organization you want to.”

During her tenure, Ziegler was named Volunteer of the Year with Wells Fargo and received a $1,500 grant which she gave to Jenn’s House. Other grants received have been donated to CLIU 21 and Salisbury schools.

In the mid-Atlantic region of Wells Fargo, there are over 8,000 employees with approximately 500 hours of volunteer time and much of the volunteering is not on work time. Wells Fargo encourages 16 hours a year of volunteering.

Ziegler has over 2,000 hours of volunteer service.

She started volunteering while her kids were young at Harry S Truman Elementary School, now Salisbury Elementary School. She then mentored students at Salisbury Middle School.

She served on the Salisbury School District School Board for 16 years, the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21 board for 15 years and was president (14 districts) of the IU. She is currently a community board member of the CLIU 21 Special Needs Foundation Board.

Ziegler served on the board of Jenn’s House for 15 years.

With the bank, she has volunteered for the Salvation Army and participated in the bank sponsored Reading First program at the schools. When the program ended, she continued to do it on her own.

Every May, bank volunteers work together in the community; one year it was a sprucing up of Building 21 in Allentown with 100 volunteers working on landscaping, murals, benches, working in Allentown parks, Easton Signature Days and Habitat for Humanity.

Bank employees also collected backpacks and supplies for back to school.

“I don’t have plans to retire at this point,” Ziegler said.

“This career has given me the opportunity to do what I love to do – volunteering, community projects and have the career that I wanted and trained for. It encourages you to be involved. You have a voice at the bank. You can do as much as your job requires or you can do much more.”

Ziegler praises the relationships formed with co-workers and the larger network of the community. “The bank helps employees help themselves, help others and be advocates for themselves.”

When not working full time at Wells Fargo, Ziegler enjoys spending time with her husband of 49 years Forrest, her high school sweetheart from Salisbury who sat behind her in homeroom. She also spends time with her mom Arlene, a 68-year resident of Salisbury, her three children Jim, Amy and Amanda and her six grandchildren, Alexis, Montana, Maelyn, Stone, Liam and Hunter.

To celebrate her 50 years of service, co-workers arranged a celebration at the bank.

“I told them I started as a stenographer and someone said, ‘I’ll have to Google what that is!’”