PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL

BUILDING ON STRENGTHS

La Crescent’s Sarah Danielson focuses on hard work, positivity and community involvement.

BY JULIE NELSON | CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

Sarah Danielson’s community involvement and volunteerism have long been part of her life, from serving as a Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor and teaching Junior Achievement classes to helping decorate the La Crescent Fire Truck for Santa’s tour around town.

Sarah Danielson

When you’re a commercial banker, it’s fun to help people with dreams of starting their own business figure out the financial piece, but for Sarah Danielson of Merchant’s Bank in La Crescent, the real joy comes in helping people identify their strengths. She says too often we, as a society, spend our time looking at weaknesses.

MAXIMIZING STRENGTHS

“When you set your focus on your strengths, you can maximize what you do well and then find others to complement you in areas where you are not as strong,” says Danielson. She gives the example of employee complaints about dishes a co-worker always leaves in the breakroom, without appreciating that the same person shovels every time it snows without being asked. Danielson also references her sister, who owns a lab and is a great chemist but struggles with bookkeeping. One of her sister’s first objectives was to get her business to a point where she could hire someone else to manage the finances. She and her new employee each focus on their strengths, and the business is more successful as a result.

“Everyone has their own unique skills,” Danielson says. “Whether in banking, at home or in my community partnerships, I try to hone in on each person’s strength and focus on that. I think if everyone did that, we’d be a much more cohesive society.”

ALWAYS INVOLVED

In terms of keeping the community strong, Danielson firmly believes everyone can play a part. “The community is what you make it to be,” she says. “I take to heart the saying that service is the rent we pay for living on this earth.”

Danielson quickly admits she is usually overinvolved with community projects, but she also recognizes her joy in helping people is one of her strengths. Danielson is currently the president of the La Crescent Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, on the board for Junior Achievement of Wisconsin and part of the Lancer Creative Cooperative at La Crescent High School. She’s also an alum of Big Brothers Big Sisters and still gets together regularly with her “little,” who is now a 33-year-old with a Ph.D.

And there’s more. Danielson teaches five or six Junior Achievement classes each year, is president and treasurer of the local soccer league, plays clarinet in the community band and is a mom to a 12-year-old and to 19-year-old triplets. Whew!

HARD WORK AND HUMOR

Danielson says part of her work ethic comes from her parents, who owned a farm outside of La Crescent and struggled to make ends meet. When Danielson moved out at age 18, she had to pay for her own apartment, her own food and her own schooling. Knowing she didn’t have a safety net to fall back on forced her to pay attention to money and allowed her to become more resilient.

Through it all, Danielson says one of her most important strengths is a sense of humor. “I’m a highly organized person, but when plans start falling apart—as they often do when you are raising triplets— you just have to laugh,” she says with a big smile. CRW

As the Community School Coordinator for Northside Elementary School, Julie Nelson applauds every effort to build strong communities.