Albert Alexander

Treat people how you want to be treated. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Don’t let fear stop you from living your dream. You can do it! Everybody is not going to love or like you. It’s not about them. It’s about you. When you lower yourself to people who are hateful and bad you give them power over you. Be bigger than that, be who you are, be proud

Albert Alexander

My name is Albert Alexander. My journey started July 6, 1949 in Meridian, Mississippi. I was born in a house that had no running water. I didn’t consider myself poor. If you’ve never had it you can’t miss it. My philosophy isn’t about where you start but where you end.

My first job was picking cotton at five years old. The going rate was twenty-five cents a pound. Once a month a vendor came by our home in a truck. He’d lift up the side and would have magic potions, needles, threads, and candy for sell. We ate what we grew. The meat we ate was from something we hunted.

When I was six years old the family moved to Dayton, Ohio. It was cultural shock to move from the rural south into a society that was liberal and open. At the age of ten we moved to Tennessee where they spanked you with a paddle if you were bad.

To have a classroom like yours with different cultures and nationalities wasn’t heard of. In seventh grade I was fortunate to have teachers who challenged us to do better. I learned how rewarding it was to push yourself to learn and to do. Nineteen sixty-four was a historic year in the United States. The schools were desegregated. I was part of the first integrated school to graduate from Knoxville, Tennessee. I wanted to be an athlete. Fortunately I got lucky, or through divine intervention I grew and developed an aptitude for playing basketball. By the time I was a senior I was six-feet-four.

My mother is a hero in my life. She had dreams for me that were bigger than what I had for myself. She said, “You’re going to college.” I went to college on a basketball scholarship. In my senior year at Tennessee State we were the number one division college team in the United States. We went to the Final Four three times and the national championship two times.

Only one player from my team graduated from college and that was me. I graduated in business and finance. After college, I played a short while with the Harlem Magicians which spun off from the Harlem Globetrotters. Later I coached college basketball where I met a man recruiting for U.S. Bank.

In 1975, I moved to Minneapolis to work with them. After that I went to work at Marquette Banks until 2002 when Carl Pohlad sold his banks to Wells Fargo. In June of 2004 I went to work at Excel Bank.

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 24th anniversary. My wife has been a Judge for 23 years. She, too, is a hero in my life. She has shown me what courage is all about. How to live by principle and not be swayed by public opinion. We have two daughters who are 16 and 13. The only life they have ever known is the life they live in Edina. Each year we take a trip together to visit our family down south. The hope for my daughters is to be as happy as their mother and I have been in our life. I want them to live the life they want and to help someone less fortunate than they are. Those of us who are blessed have an obligation to share with others.