Ting Faber banks on relaxing retirement

Nicknamed "The Angel" and "The Queen," and often the target of practical jokes, Ting Faber has been an asset to Lodi since she moved here more than 40 years ago.

After 47 years serving Bank of America, Faber called it a career on Oct. 30 in order to spend more time with her grandchildren and her golden retriever, traveling and learning to play Nintendo Wii.

The vibrant Faber eagerly anticipates the relaxation retirement will provide. She said she won't miss having to get up at certain times every day and the tasks she would have to do.

"It's kind of nice," she said. "The freedom of it."

Inside her home, with its seasonal decorations and variety of paintings and other art, she reminisced about her years of service and shared fond memories of the people she worked with.

"I actually took a full-time job with the bank as temporary means for income while I was going to school," Faber said. "I never dreamed I'd stay in banking. And here I am, 47 years later."

Rosa Medina-Valencia worked with Faber for more than two years. The sales and service specialist said Faber is the ultimate people person and was excellent at what she did. "She is a wonderful person," Medina-Valencia said.

Justin Perry, a personal banker with Bank of America, agreed. "We're going to miss her," he said.

In 1965, she moved to Lodi and has made it her home ever since. She worked in both the Stockton and Lodi centers as the operations manager. As the years passed, Faber also consolidated centers and reconfigured others. She opened the first Stockton in-store banking center before becoming the consumer market manager who oversaw 30 banking centers across the region.

During that time, she drove about 1,200 miles a month and would listen to Christian books on tape during her commutes.

In 2002, she became the first female manager of the Lodi Banking Center. It was then that one of her associates nicknamed her "The Queen."

A year later, Faber served on the steering and advisory committees for Lodi's Chamber of Commerce. She said the experience gave her a greater understanding and respect for farmers, especially Lodi's grape growers.

Faber stayed in banking because she enjoyed the people and the familial bonds she made with her associates. She said the people she worked with kept the job interesting as well.

"I'm always the victim of practical jokes," she said. "All my life."

She said there used to be a banking center where the Taco Bell now resides on Lodi Avenue. Part of her job was to do a security check each night before the bank closed. One night, a co-worker put a stuffed scarecrow inside one of the stalls in the restroom. When she swung the stall door open to make sure no one was in there, a life-sized scarecrow was staring her in the face.

Ting Faber at a glance

Who: Ting Faber, recently retired Lodian who worked for Bank of America for 47 years.
What's next: Spending time with her grandchildren, her golden retriever and learning to play games on Nintendo Wii.
Career achievements: Credit checker, consumer market manager, first female manager of Lodi Banking Center, steering and finance committee member for Lodi Chamber of Commerce.

Her favorite prank happened three years ago when she was on a bus with her fellow banking managers. They were going to a meeting, and she used the restroom. While she was in there, one of her associates duct-taped the bathroom door shut, sealing her inside.

"When I would hit the door," she said. "It would push me back and I would flush the toilet because there is a little button right there. They still tease me about that."

'The Angel'

Faber moved from Montana after graduating high school in 1962. She found her career that fall. She started off as a credit checker, where she was dubbed "The Angel" by her manager. He gave her a small angel statue, which she still has and uses as a decoration during the Christmas season.

She also cherishes a gift a regular customer gave her years ago.

He was an elderly gentleman who was poor and very hardworking, she said. He would come to her line every Friday because he would get silver dollars for his children's allowance. She said she would save the coins for him. One day he gave her a Bible.

"I know he had saved a very long time for it," she said. "I still have that Bible."

Faber's favorite book is Philippians, because it is the book of joy. She attends Temple Baptist Church and reads daily devotions in her home. Her faith is central to her daily life, she said.

She is looking forward to spending more time with her grandchildren: Kevin, 13, Kyle, 10, and Karly, 6.

"They are the light of my life," she said. Her only child, Samantha Angeline, lives in North Stockton.

Kevin, her eldest grandson, has been setting up the Wii Fit with her, a device designed to calculate the user's motions. She said he wants her to do it because she exercises like she is 75, not 65.

"He said 'Grandma, I've got my work cut out for me,'" she said.

Faber is looking forward to her annual Disneyland trip with the grandchildren as well as going on a cruise with a friend of hers. The two went years ago, but her work schedule has made it impossible to have another for some time.

Today's banking

During her years in the industry, Faber witnessed change. She describes the transitions the banking underwent as the digital age dawned as gradual.

"When I started with the bank, we did a lot of manual processing," she said. "Then it went into automation. It wasn't overnight. We became the bank of convenience."

She said the rise in automation led to more customers handling transactions at the ATM instead of coming into a branch.

Faber also offered tips for people to safeguard their identity. She said she has two checking accounts and two credit cards. She uses one debit card and one checking account for bills and the other for shopping. She said it prevents her from having to wait several days in case one of her cards is lost or stolen. She has two credit card accounts for the same reason.

"Of course they are all through Bank of America," she said.

Contact reporter Jordan Guinn at jordang@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

BusinessLoans wrote on Nov 17, 2009 8:10 PM:

" She deserves this, Ting Faber is the best!
http://www.ezbusinessloans.com "

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davidd wrote on Nov 17, 2009 1:34 PM:

" Ting, I'm so happy for you! Congratulations and thanks for all your help over the years. "

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