Everyone Calls Her Alice

By Penny Costello

At a time when the nation is grieving her passing and honoring the legacy of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, southeast Nebraskans are also absorbing the sudden death of Federal District Judge Laurie Smith Camp. Judge Camp has been likened to Justice Ginsburg as a champion of women’s rights and equality.

So many women have risen on their shoulders, enjoying freedoms and opportunities that may not otherwise have been afforded them had it not been for the intelligence, passion and persistence that RBG and Laurie Smith Camp brought to their respective benches.

This week marks a much happier milestone in the life of another influential leader in the Lincoln community and beyond. Alice Dittman, Chair Emeritus and retired president of Cornhusker Bank, celebrates 90 trips around the sun on Thursday, Oct. 1.

I first met Alice in 2012, when I worked at NET-Television, Nebraska’s PBS station, as producer of a series called Nebraska Philanthropy: Investing In Our Future. It was a year before Alice would retire as Chair of Cornhusker Bank, and she had recently launched Alice’s Integrity Loan Fund, a micro-lending program for women- and minority-owned businesses.

When she walked into the studio, I was excited to capture her story for our program. What I didn’t expect was the spark of inspiration she would ignite in me, and the gift of her presence in my life as a friend and mentor.  But that was just because I didn’t know Alice. I now know she pretty much has that effect on everyone she meets.

Alice was born into a banking family and found her calling in what is still the male-dominated business of banking. From the time she can remember, Alice was immersed in the practice of money management. It started with counting and folding bills in her father, George Frampton’s leather wallet. When she was around five years old, Mr. Frampton set her up in her first entrepreneurial venture, selling bottles of pop. 

“He bought me a case of pop one summer and I remember it was one dollar for 24 bottles. And so I set up shop on the street. I sold the 24 bottles for a markup of 100 percent because well, it was, I sold them for 10 cents. You couldn’t buy six-packs of bottles in the 30s, you bought individual ones. And so there I branched out with mobile banking and my little red wagon and a container of ice and went door to door. So, I mean, hey, this new technology about mobile banking is nothing new, I started when I was five.”

In 1949, the Frampton’s bought Farmers State Bank in the Village of Davey, just north of Lincoln. Alice worked at the bank while in high school. Eventually, the bank would relocate to Lincoln, and become Cornhusker Bank.

Women’s career prospects in the 50s were generally limited to secretaries, nurses or teachers. Alice, an excellent student in the top 10 percent of her class, earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1952. She went on to study for a year in the Harvard Radcliffe Program in Business and Management before returning to UNL to earn a Master’s Degree in Finance and Management. 

She married Mark Dittman in 1959, and the couple had three children, Dawn, John and Doug. Following in her parents’ footsteps, Alice and Mark launched their own banking ventures in Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas City until 1975, when Mark died of cancer at age 44. 

Considering his own retirement, George Frampton invited Alice to come home and succeed him as the head of Cornhusker Bank. She accepted. Suddenly a working, single mother of three teenagers, she entered the most challenging professional role of her life. She would have to fill her father’s shoes and forge her own path at the same time.

Her first salary as president of the bank was $17,500 a year. “Even in 1975, that wasn’t a great deal of money,” she said. “But I didn’t want it to be. As long as you get by, you grow the business, then the salary can grow with it.” And grow she did, bringing the bank and the community along with her.

Alice doesn’t identify as a feminist or a “women’s libber.” According to her, you just do what you have to do.

“I don’t think I was in the forefront of the women’s movement because I was so busy trying to grow a bank and a family and be involved in the community in other ways – Lincoln Chamber, State Chamber – those things all take time and frankly, public speaking. If you don’t have a great deal of money for a marketing budget, those things helped Cornhusker Bank be better known in the community. In that way I felt like we could play a larger role than perhaps going to meetings, doing rallies.”

She created flexible job share opportunities for Cornhusker Bank employees (working mothers), which few if any employers offered at the time. Under her leadership, a culture was created in which the bank’s tagline, “Committed to Your Success” applied equally to clients and employees.

Alice and her team led the bank into the computer age, through Y2K, and into the 21^st Century. She has amassed dozens of prestigious awards and honors, too numerous to list. Her accomplishments include an impressive list of “Firsts” as the first woman to lead:

• Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and State Chamber of Commerce 
• Bryan Hospital Board of Directors
• Nebraska Bankers Association
• Community Bankers Assn (division of the American Bankers Assn.)
• Lincoln Country Club Board
•  Cornhusker Bank and Chair of Board of Directors
  

She has given back to UNL through her philanthropy and mentorship of Business Administration students. She has been instrumental in the vitality and success of the start-up culture that has earned Lincoln, Omaha and Kansas City recognition as the Silicon Prairie. She created and personally financed Alice’s Integrity Loan Fund. And we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of her philanthropic impact.

And the thing about Alice that must be said is, there’s not a haughty bone in her body. Blessed with extreme intelligence and foresight, she approaches everything and everyone with a straight-forward, down-to-earth pragmatism backed by her wisdom, experience and education. From the wealthiest of clients to the guy who parks her car, she treats everyone with the same kindness, respect and genuine interest. 

If you ask Alice Dittman how she’d like to be remembered, she’ll tell you.

“I would first and foremost, like to be remembered as a person of integrity. And it’s everything you do when nobody’s looking. You make a decision early to follow that or not. And I think that was one of things that my folks made clear to me entrusting me to use good judgment and moving ahead in business or in my little wagon selling pop door to door, 10 cents a bottle in the 30s.”

Everything you do when nobody’s looking. I think it’s safe to say this community is going to benefit for decades, if not generations, from what Alice Dittman has done. From her leadership, vision and the values she passed along and instilled at Cornhusker Bank to her extensive philanthropic efforts to the hundreds of lives she has impacted through mentoring and support of entrepreneurship, and so much more.

On a very personal note, I’d like to say Happy Birthday, Alice! And thank you for everything. For your indomitable spirit, for your endless grace and generosity, for your leadership, compassion, friendship and your faith in all of our very human potential.

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