"Small Town" Graduate Finds Career in Capital City
A former chair of the Buena Vista University Alumni Board of Directors and Order of the Arch member, Tracy Abbas shares time and treasure to keep BVU traditions growing ever stronger.
Buena Vista University’s long reach was never so evident for Tracy Abbas ’85 as it was on a morning in France.
“I stepped off a train and was wearing a BVU t-shirt,” she says with a laugh. “A young lady walked past me and yelled, ‘Go Beavers!’ She made my day!”
While the famed “Beaver Train,” which students now practice on campus and beyond wasn’t a tradition during Abbas’ days as a student, her own “Beaver Train” anecdote illustrates how omnipresent her alma mater remains. A former chair of the BVU Alumni Board of Directors and Order of the Arch member, Abbas is always ready to work for all things BVU.
“BVU allowed me to learn outside of my comfort zone. I love telling people how fortunate I was to have such a great college experience.”
Tracy Abbas
“College has four years to mold us into the tax-paying citizens we are today, so I always try to give back in treasure or in time to keep the tradition alive,” says Abbas, a vice president with Bankers Trust Company in Des Moines.
“I love BVU and everything it stands for,” she continues. “I received a liberal arts education and have used the skills I sharpened in college in many ways. Those of us who have had the opportunity to get a private college education understand the importance and truly appreciate its value.”
Abbas says she came to Buena Vista University and initially found comfort in the ratio of professors to students. A collegiate experience featuring class sizes that led to individualized attention was a strength, especially for a product of Kanawha, home to 750 residents at the time.
“I loved the ‘small-town’ feel on campus,” she says.
Soon after becoming involved in a variety of campus clubs and organizations, Abbas found work off-campus as a new fashion retailer opened on Lake Avenue, The Brass Buckle, now known as The Buckle.
“The Brass Buckle was a very popular place, and I was able to meet a lot of Storm Lake-area residents at that time,” she says.
Drs. Paul Russell (professor of economics) and John Madsen (professor of corporate communications) were among faculty members who challenged Abbas, encouraging her to expand her horizons, to think big.
“Dr. John Madsen taught from the heart and made classes such as public speaking enjoyable and entertaining,” says Abbas, a business management science major who minored in speech/drama. “Dr. Russell was a brilliant man who made business and economics fun. He also made it very clear we must be lifelong learners.”
Abbas kept busy as a Beaver with Student Senate, serving on the homecoming committee, and overseeing developments on her dormitory floor. As a senior, she left campus to serve as an intern with Hawkeye Bancorporation in Des Moines.
“I did my senior internship under a fellow Buena Vista graduate who was a senior vice president of marketing,” she says. “He took me to board meetings, marketing meetings, etc., and, after one month, I earned a job with Hawkeye Capital Bank and Trust in Des Moines. I graduated and started my career three days later.”
Since then, Abbas hasn’t left Des Moines. She rose quickly at Hawkeye Capital Bank and Trust in a little more than five years, ascending from employee to officer to assistant vice president, the youngest female officer to be promoted at that time.
Shortly after moving to Bankers Trust in 1990, she was promoted to vice president and senior trust officer.
Looking back, she wasn’t so sure she’d ever leave the Kanawha area. She was, after all, the first person in her family to attend college.
“Buena Vista gave me the confidence to leave my hometown and enjoy the Storm Lake environment for four years,” she says. “I still have fond memories of making homecoming floats and watching the parade move down Lake Avenue toward the lake.”
Preparing for classes, working with peers, and using the steady guidance of faculty mentors allowed Abbas to grow personally while forming professional curiosities.
“Without my skill set and the interpersonal skills I learned on campus, I wouldn’t have survived the move to a large, metropolitan city,” she says. “BVU allowed me to learn outside of my comfort zone. I love telling people how fortunate I was to have such a great college experience.”
Even if that Beaver “tale” occurs at a train stop, somewhere in the middle of France.