Banker turns life experience into 42-year career

Whether it was pride or premonition, Jim Fiebiger predicted his future decades in advance.

By the time he graduated from Blooming Prairie High School in 1979, he’d been farming on his own for about four years.

“My dad farmed, so I rented land and used his equipment,” Fiebiger said. “I understood agriculture, and at 16, I came here to borrow money. Of course, my dad had to co-sign.”

“Here” was, at the time, Farmers and Merchants State Bank. It was the beginning of a long relationship.

Getting started

After graduation, Fiebiger went to what was then Austin Community College for two years, earning his associate of science degree in agriculture. That was going to be that, but …

“My friends were all going on to get their bachelor’s degree, so I had to go along with them,” he said.

Fiebiger took some business classes – which would come in handy as a farmer.

“I liked them,” he said, “but when I got into finance classes, I thought they were easy – and I thought they were fun. So I got a bachelor’s degree with concentrations in finance and real estate, and a minor in economics.”

While farming had been the initial plan, he graduated from college at the beginning of the farm crisis in the early 1980s.

“Farming was not easy,” Fiebiger said. “You didn’t make any money at it.”

Just before his graduation in December 1982, he sent resumes to different banks around the country, looking for a job.

“I hadn’t heard anything from any of those resumes,” Fiebiger said, “so when I came home here to Blooming Prairie, I just put my suit on, took my resumes and went door-to-door.”

One of his first stops was his hometown bank, F&M Bank. He had just turned 21.

“I really wasn’t expecting a job,” he said. “I was really hoping to maybe get some (banking) contacts.”

Instead, he sat in an office and had a conversation with “Mr. Habberstad – Ed Habberstad, who was probably 65 years old.”

He was the son of Oscar Habberstad, who had opened Farmers & Merchants on Blooming Prairie’s Main Street in 1904.

“Ed said to me, ‘Jim, I don’t know you very well, but I know your dad real well. I’m just not really looking for an entry level person – I’m looking for someone to replace me. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in Florida.”

His bank president had quit, so Habberstad’s retirement was interrupted. He’d returned to BP to run the bank again.

“So I said, ‘Mr. Habberstad, I’m the guy that’s going to replace the guy that replaces you,’” Fiebiger said. “I don’t know where that came from.”

But Ed Habberstad laughed, and Fiebiger told him he was actually just looking for names of banks that might be hiring, then went on his way.

“The next day, I was in Albert Lea, going from bank to bank,” Fiebiger said. “When I came home, there was a message waiting for me to call Ed Habberstad.”

Habberstad had spoken with his son, Steve, and son-in-law Jerry Williamson, who recommended he hire the young farmer-turned-banker.

“And that’s how it all began,” Fiebiger said.

Settling in

The original plan was simply to get experience.

“My big goal was to just get two years’ experience,” Fiebiger said. “Then when I hit two years, I knew if I could get five, I could go wherever I wanted, because I’d be an experienced lender.”

But within a few years, he bought stock in the bank, “so I had a vested interest.”

Still, the farm crisis loomed large, peaking in about 1987.

“The farm credit here was one of the worst in the country,” Fiebiger said. “I ended up friends with a mediation attorney, and he would send people my way. They’re still customers today.”

His focus was almost exclusively agricultural and commercial lending.

“The thing I like the most is helping people,” he said. “I picked up customers when they hardly had anything, and they’re multi-multi-millionaires now. It was fun to go on that ride with them – and I like to think I helped a little bit.

“I always wanted to make it so it was fun,” he added. “This doesn’t have to be hard; it’s quite simple, really.”

It’s clear he’s in the right business.

As the conversation veered from banking to teaching – his wife Kristi was a teacher – Fiebiger pulled out a calculator and slid his glasses on.

He rattled off numbers and percentages in a brief lesson about pensions, then paused and said, “that’s what guys like me do: We see that future.”

He was named president of F&M Bank in 1998, becoming regional market president.

For 115 years, the bank was owned by the Habberstad family. In 2021, they sold it to MBT Bank.

After the acquisition, Fiebiger became supervisor for all the lenders in the new Minnesota banks for MBT.

Stepping down

The idea of his own retirement was something he had to grow into.

“When you work for someone for 42 years – it was never my company; I always had a boss – it’s time. I think 42 years is enough,” Fiebiger said.

In that time, things have changed in ways that are hard to imagine.

“When I first came here, we didn’t have a computer,” he said. “Not one. Everything was picked up by courier” for delivery up to the Twin Cities; all accounts were balanced manually.

“When I started in January 1983, I’d had one computer class – basic language,” Fiebiger said, “and I was considered the expert. We bought one PC, and it was $6,000.”

He noted the similarities in farming and banking over the last 42 years.

“The small operation doesn’t make it anymore,” he said. “You have to get bigger and bigger … but I’m still old-school; I still have to have paper in my hand, highlighting things.”

He’ll leave customers at the Blooming Prairie branch in good hands, too: Fiebiger hired all the lenders working there now.

“They’re from the area and they have ag backgrounds,” he said, and the one with the least amount of experience has 15 years in lending.

“I’m very fortunate,” Fiebiger said. “You want longevity in banking. Some of them I’ve had so long, they tell me I can’t retire until they retire.”

He will hand off his customers to the lenders who remain, and are familiar faces.

His own position will likely be absorbed in a realignment process, with his responsibilities filled by a senior management team.

Fiebiger will spend more time on the golf course; he and his wife love to travel, “but we don’t plan on leaving (town) just yet.”

So, after four decades, did he make good on his promise to Ed Habberstad? Did Fiebiger replace the guy that replaced Ed?

“Ahh,” he said. “Not quite. It was the next guy after him.”