Over the past several years of her life, Minooka native Lindsey Temper has learned a very important lesson: “hard work and dedication pays off.”
When Temper, 29, graduated from Minooka Community High School, she headed south to study marketing and sales at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. Her dream at that time was to get into a large company, maybe even a company as well known as Pepsi, she said.
Several attempts to get into one of those large companies didn’t pan out, however.
“Those opportunities are hard to come by,” she said.
Meanwhile, Temper had started working for the Chase Bank branch in Peoria during her junior year at Bradley as a part-time teller.
Little did she know her part-time work was going to turn into something much greater in just a few years.
Temper graduated from Bradley with her bachelor’s degree in 2005. That same year, she was given her first promotion at Chase. She was now manager of the Peoria branch.
“She always stayed busy,” said Lindsey’s father, Herb Temper of Minooka. While in high school, Temper worked many jobs, including positions at the Minooka Creamery, Morris’ Walmart, JCPenny and Applebee’s.
It didn’t take long for the promotions to start rolling in at Chase.
About a year after becoming branch manager, Temper had earned a new spot — one that would take her to the Rockefeller Center in New York. For about another year, Temper was a sales manager at the branch out east.
She explained once she was given a new job, she was required to stay put for at least one year. After that time was up, however, she wasn’t sure what would happen.
After Temper was promoted to the Rockefeller Center, she was no stranger to picking up and moving states away. But Chase brought her closer to home and gave her more opportunities to manage branches in Naperville from 2007 to 2009 and Morris from 2009 to 2011.
Following those management positions, Temper was shipped across the country again. This time she worked as a business banker at a Chase branch in California.
“I worked with businesses up to 3 million (dollars) in annual revenues,” Temper said.
Throughout all of her position, title and location changes, over the course of about five years, Temper had been keeping her eye on one job in particular. This one would hopefully bring her back to Chicago for quite some time.
In October 2012, her goal was realized. For the past several weeks, Temper has been at home in Illinois working in her new role as the national sales trainer for small business banking. She is now based in Chicago, but is responsible for the entire Midwest region.
“I’m passionate about training,” Temper said. “I got my master’s (degree) so I could teach later in life.”
She earned her master’s degree in business administration from Benedictine University in Lisle, Ill.
The Minooka native now travels to training facilities throughout her designated region to train fellow Chase employees.
“I hope this is permanent. I never want to move again,” she said, laughing.
So far, her newest job is her favorite by far. California was the favorite, but she said it was very expensive to move and too labor intensive.
“I’m hoping to stay put for a long time,” Temper said.
Her father is happy his little girl has finally reached what she calls her dream job. He said he is proud of the work she has done to get to where she is and is thrilled everything is working out for her.
“I’ve known a lot of youngsters who went to college for five years and their work is nothing like that wanted it to be,” Herb said. “They just take something to pay the bills.”
Temper has pushed and persevered, though, and has made it to her dream job before she reached 30 years old. Her encouragement to other college-aged people is to not dismiss the entry-level position they may be working in. Her time as a part-time teller blossomed into traveling all over the country from the east coast to the west, but it would never have happened if she didn’t stick to it and work hard.
“I’ve grown as a person a lot and have learned a lot along the way,” Temper said.
