Justin Green | East Peoria, IL

Called “a local treasure of our community,” Justin Green is a Corporate Loan Review Manager at Morton Community Bank. He is in charge of reviewing and grading the quality of the bank’s commercial loan portfolio of $3 billion. “Being part of the bank the past 11 years has been a very special experience,” writes Justin. “While we have continued to grow, the feeling of a small community bank has never waned and management has made certain that the bank continues to go above and beyond for their customers and our community.”

Andy Honegger, Morton Community Bank’s CEO, values Justin's professionalism and reliability. “Justin is a serious professional in leadership at the Bank, but moreover he is a genuinely kind and caring individual with high moral character and personal responsibility. He is the type of person you know you can count on.”

Justin grew up in Mackinaw and once, as a contestant for Little Mr. Mack-a-Fest, told the interviewer that he wanted to be “a doctor so I can help people.” While his aversion to blood ultimately excluded that career choice, his focus on helping people remained. Justin earned both a B.S. in International Studies and an MBA from Bradley University before joining the bank in 2014.

Justin and his wife Heather were married that same year and after a long journey of trying to expand their family, they welcomed their daughter in 2019—six weeks early. “She spent most of those six weeks in the NICU at OSF Children's Hospital of Illinois. It was a very stressful time and not the way we anticipated spending Christmas of 2019. But today she is a beautiful, perfectly healthy, six-year-old ballerina.”

Justin had already been involved in fundraising for OSF Children’s Hospital through Extra Life, a program through which individuals or teams play games to raise money for hospitals. “While I was involved in fundraising for the hospital via Extra Life prior to her birth, after they saved my daughter, the hospital became a passion of mine.” Since 2016, Justin’s team has raised nearly $75,000 for OSF.

Although it’s hard to choose just one person he most admires, Justin points to his father, Al Green. “He was always driving me to give it my all and strive to do better, but at the same time providing a safe place for if I would fall. His dedication to my mother and our family, his relationship with God and his service to our country in the Army, all provided me guidance on what it means to be a husband, father, Christian and good citizen.”

Justin’s wife, Heather, has been a Special Education teacher for 15 years and their daughter, Josie, is in kindergarten at Blessed Sacrament School in Morton where Justin often volunteers. While the Greens have many favorite local spots, they love escaping to their friend’s ranch in Montana whenever they get the chance.