When Gwen Parker graduated from Athens State College with a bachelor of science degree in k-12 education in 1977, she was dismayed to find that the market was flooded with teachers. However, that fact led her life and career in another direction, which she has come to love. Banking.

Originally from the Duck River community, and a graduate of Holly Pond High School, Parker was a top athlete who excelled in both volleyball and softball. Athletics paid her way through college, both at Cullman College, where she graduated in the last class (1975) before the two-year college was closed, and then again at Athens State.

Her first banking job was at Merchant’s Bank where she started on the ground floor and for seventeen years worked her way up. “When I started there we only had one branch and eight employees,” Parker recalls. 

In 1994, she accepted a position with Peoples Bank of Alabama, graduated from the Alabama Banking School, and continued to work her way up to her current position, as senior vice president over Branch Administration, where she oversees 23 branches in seven counties. Her position also includes overseeing bank security, and some marketing for the bank.

Parker gets the call immediately after the 911 operators receive the initial call that a robbery is in progress. She has worked with local law enforcement and the FBI on 14 robberies over the last 20 years. The worst Parker remembers was the one in Good Hope. “The perpetrators were very aggressive and loud,” she said. “In about 99 percent of these incidents, the perpetrators are caught almost immediately.

“Banking is a high risk occupation,” she said. “But I love it, especially interacting with people, getting to know our customers, understanding their needs, and being flexible enough to help them with their financial needs or in a financial crisis.”

She also helps to teach customers about how to budget and set financial goals.

Parker is a perfect example of how valuable women are in the workplace. She is a champion of women’s rights and speaks boldly about their place in the business sector. “I think that women are often more organized and detail oriented,” she said. “It takes two people to provide for a family these days,” she said.

Not only is she very involved in her career, but Parker also makes it a point to be involved in her community. She is an active member of the Elks Lodge, and has been elected president a total of four terms over the years. She holds the distinction of being  the first woman to be elected as the state president in 2008-2009, and was the first woman to hold that position in the United States.

Her work with the Elks Lodge and her terms as president have helped to open doors for other women with those ambitions. “We have approximately 7,000 members in the Elks of Alabama, and 500 of those are in Cullman,” she said proudly. “We have many excellent leaders in the Elks in Alabama as well as Cullman.”

With the Elks Lodge, Parker and her peers have been able to sponsor scholarships for graduating seniors in the county, sponsor needy families at Christmas, support local veterans, and sponsor the Hoop Shoot each January. “The Hoop Shoot goes all the way to the national level,” she explained proudly. “Last year Holly Pond’s Micah Olinger was fourth in the nation. The bank sponsors the family in the event their child wins at local and state levels.”

The Elks also bring the campaign against drugs to area schools, promote Americanism in schools, and make sure that every third grader in the city and county receives a dictionary, compliments of the Elks.

“That’s one reason I love banking,” she said. “It’s very community oriented and looks for ways to help, as do the Elks.”

She is also a board member of the Red Cross and the Better Business Bureau. “The Red Cross is a worthwhile organization that helps families after natural disasters, like April 27, 2011. People don’t appreciate how much the Red Cross does until an event like that,” she said. “It devastated our town. The organization also helps families in the aftermath of a house fire with a place to stay and clothing, and to locate and bring Armed Forces personnel home in the event of family emergencies.”

Parker loves spending time with her fiancé, Johnny Harper of Fairview, cooking, entertaining, being outdoors on the golf course, at the beach, and with her family. She has two grown daughters, Kristi Parker, 34, and Tiffany Parker, 29, and one granddaughter, Olivia, 5. She passed her athletic abilities along to them, and has chauffeured them to “every kind of sporting event that there is, including cheering,” she laughed. She coached several of their teams.

Parker was inducted into the Cullman County Sports Hall of Fame in 2003, for volleyball, softball and coaching.

“That’s been the highlight of my life,” she reflected. “Raising, loving and caring for my family.”

She is proud to call Cullman her home, “There are great, honest, God-fearing  people here, who display high morals and ethics and take pride in their jobs,” she said. “This is a great place to raise kids!”