Manny Hochhelmer

Age: 36

Job title/company. Assistant vice president of corporate and external relations, Numerica Credit Union.

Education. B.S. in business management from Colorado State University and M.B.A. from Whitworth University.

Tell us about your career so far. I started in the financial industry as a bank teller at 21 years of age while finishing college for the nation’s third largest privately held bank, FirstBank in Colorado. I spent a decade with them working my way up from teller to branch administration and regional management. When my wife, Vange, and I moved to Spokane six years ago, I spent a year with Merrill Lynch rounding out my financial industry experience with the investment banking side of the equation. After Merrill, I ventured back into community banking with Numerica Credit Union and have spent five years with them, reporting first to the COO and now to the CEO.

What are your aspirations? I would like to become the president/CEO of a Spokane-based, local credit union or community bank.

Tell us about your mentor, or someone you look to for inspiration. I have been very blessed in life to have had multiple mentors at FirstBank, Merrill Lynch, and now Numerica. One of my mentors once told me that most people are lucky to even have one mentor in their lifetime—and you have and have had multiple. Be very grateful for that and never forget how lucky and blessed you are, and then use that to inspire and mentor others the way you have been blessed. I do want to highlight a specific group of my mentors, the brothers and sisters of my local Spokane Rotary Club No. 21. That is a collective group of men and women that I look up to and receive mentorship on multiple aspects, including marriage, fatherhood, parenting, education, life, career, and community stewardship. At the end of  the day, my No. 1 go-to mentor among all of my treasured and trusted mentors is Jennifer Lehn, Numerica’s COO.

What generational stereotype do you feel strong about? I am from Gen X, and a stereotype that I agree with is that we tend to cherish our work-life balance and yearn for adventure and the outdoors. My wife and I certainly love to travel and spend as much time enjoying God’s great gifts that nature provides. We camp, ski, boat, hike, golf, and simply enjoy the family time out living life and soaking up experiences. 

Something interesting/random about yourself. I was born in Germany, and we immigrated to America when I was 5. I speak both English and German, as I grew up with two amazing cultures and languages.