Meet The Bankers:
Karen Johnson

My name is Karen Johnson. I'm Vice President, Branch Manager of the Valley Stream Branch.

How does banking local help grow our communities?

Banking local helps grow our community because we’re consistent in the community. Up the block from my Branch, there’s the Valley Stream Park and on every other Thursday, like in the fall, they have like a flea market where you can go and buy locally, grown vegetables and fruit; people make cakes and candies and you can see the customers there. Banking locally it's such a great thing because customers know you and to get to see them in places around the community. So having First National Bank LI in the community, it's a great thing and I tell my customers every day, if you Bank with us, you're in great Hands.

Why is personal banking still important in the digital world?

Personal Banking is still important because it's nice when customers can do stuff online; it's convenient for them, especially on days where they can’t come out to the branches, but I think coming into the branches with equally important because we want to see them. We want to get to see our customers we want to introduce them to our business partners, introduce them to the staff and what’s funny about that is customers walk in, and they get to see each other from the community within the Bank. So it's great that they can do their banking digitally, but it’s also nice when they can come in and get to see our faces we're consistent- we're always there to help them.

What banking solutions should more customers consider and why?

At First National Bank LI we offer so many great services but if I had to choose one that I want to refer to my customer it would have to be Business Online Banking. Why? -because you can do so much with Business Online Banking. You can do stop payments, you can send wires, you can check your account intermittently, you can make transfers from one account to the next. You can do so many things with Business Online Banking. One of the great things about that too is if you have several accounts, which a lot of our customers do, we can list all the accounts under one umbrella, you have one sign on, so once you see that, once you open up your online, you can see all your accounts, and you can do whatever you want to do.

What is a fun fact about yourself?

So my husband and I went to a Broadway show a couple years ago and sitting across from us was Whoopi Goldberg, the actress, The View host, and my husband noticed that was her. My husband looked over said, “Hi Whoopi, how are you” and she said, “Hi, how are you? What's your name?” ,and my husband told her. My husband said this is my wife, Karen and she says “Hi Karen, nice to meet you” and I said nice to meet you as well, and I was presumptuous to say to her, “Hey Whoopi, you know, you're my namesake” and she looked at me like “really, what do you mean” and I said, because my name is Karen Johnson and I know your birth name is also Karen Johnson, and she was like, "wow are you serious? How did you know that” I said, I don't know, I just know. She gave me a nice embrace and that's my fun fact. It was nice meeting her. She was very gracious.