Employee Spotlight: Louesa Lambert

Job Title: Credit Analyst
Location: Verona Branch
Tenure: 10 years
Briefly describe your involvement in FFA. While I was not in FFA myself, I have helped my children with their market animals for the last 7 years.

Briefly describe your involvement in agriculture. Currently, I have a small hobby farm that includes chickens, ducks, turkeys, goats, and cattle.
Tell us about your family. I was born in Springfield, IL and grew up in a suburb of Chicago. I have a sister and brother and the 3 of us are all 16 months apart; I am the middle child. I went to college in TN. After meeting my husband, I moved to VA as this is where he grew up. We have 2 children, a daughter who will be 21 in March and is getting married this summer, and a son who just turned 18 and will be pursuing welding as a career once he graduates this year. The only ag I had growing up was due to my grandparents who live in southern, IL as they raised a few head of Hereford cows and had 20 acres of land with a pond. We spent most weekends at my grandparents' house.

What is your favorite song or artist? Dolly Parton is my favorite artist. Not only do I love her music, but I love the fact she is a philanthropist. Some of my favorite songs of hers are 9 to 5, Hard Candy Christmas, and Jesus & Gravity.
Tell us about your pets. I have 5 dogs at my house at the moment. Two of them are mine (a Biewer Terrier and a Brittany), two of them are my daughter's (a Chiweenie and a German Shorthaired Pointer), and one is my son's (a Llewelyn Setter). I enjoy bird hunting with the Brittany and Llewelyn and am currently working on training the GSP to be able to join us. Additionally, we have 4 cats. Three of them are barn cats while one is an indoor/outdoor cat. My husband named him D.O.G. and it fits as he asks to go out and come in, like the dogs, and even uses the dog doors.

What is your favorite season? Camping season! My family loves to camp. We really enjoy staying close to home and camping at Natural Chimneys in Mount Solon. Camping was one of the first things my husband and I did when we met, and we have raised the kids camping from March-October each year. We typically will camp ~15 times each year.
What is your dream vacation destination? I had the opportunity to travel to Australia and New Zealand the summer between my 8th and 9th grade year. I went with a group of 20 kids my age with 5 chaperones with a group called People to People Student Ambassadors. If I had only one place I could travel to, I would love to go back to Tanaglooma Island, Australia again.
What was your first job? My first job was being a teller.
What is the most interesting or favorite aspect of your job? While it is not everyone's cup of tea, I really like working on the most complex loan requests; the ones with a lot of pieces like multiple owned entities/businesses. I enjoy breaking down each piece of the financials and then being able to put them back together for the financial analysis.
If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why? It's a tie between invisibility and the ability to talk to animals. Sometimes it is nice to be able to just hide from the world and take time to myself but it would be nice to be able to talk with animals so I could understand what they were saying or how they were feeling.