2025 rewind: The annual look at our favorite stories of the past year

The News & Stories editors round up five of the many stories we were happy to publish during the year

Forget about Spotify Unwrapped and the lists of best movies, music and TV shows. Our favorite year-end tradition is looking back at our favorite stories posted right here on U.S. Bank News & Stories.

And rather than add a long intro that no one will read, let’s get right to the list.

From teenaged customer to mural maker
In July, we had a story and video about Kamelia Hristeva, who started banking with U.S. Bank more than 20 years ago at 16 and went on to get involved in public art projects in Chicago.

That included her founding the Green Star Movement, funded by U.S. Bank, and creating a mosaic mural for the U.S. Bank branch on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago.

The full-circle story is captured in words and a video.

Collateralized loan obligations demystified
We have to admit that while we’ve known U.S. Bank is a leader in collateralized loan obligations and that people usually call those CLOs for shorthand, we didn’t really understand what they were exactly. That was until we profiled Tony Fajardo, a Chicago-based CLO client manager who was very good at explaining them to us.

If you ever want to know about CLOs and what makes a CLO client manager good at their job, this is a good story to start with.

Helping medical professionals get off the ground
Speaking of bankers who are good at what they do, another profile we ran was of Jeramie Eimers of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who specializes in banking doctors, dentists and veterinarians.

Many doctors come out of school carrying $400,000 or $500,000 of debt, and Eimers helps them secure financing to launch or expand their practices and turn their financial situations around.

Eimers has decades-long relationships with some of his clients, including a California dentist who has worked with Eimers for 25 years and said he’s been instrumental in his professional success.

Helping an Oregon school get a proper track
In rural Imbler, Oregon, the school district has one K-12 school for all its residents. Until recently, its athletic facilities included a track on a dirt and gravel path that was built by a local farmer.

That changed when the U.S. Bank Foundation provided the district with a $25,000 grant that helped fund a new track facility.

As you’ll see in the video that accompanies the story, the grant helped the community get off and running.

Taking freight payments from the basement to the big time
Spend any time on a highway and you’ll see big trucks in the process of hauling goods from point A to point B. The logistics involved in all of this can be quite complex, and that includes making payments to companies and their carriers.

Back before the turn of the century, a team of U.S. Bank employees in a basement in Minneapolis were charged with coming up with a way to automate the payment process. Their work laid the foundation for something that has become a cornerstone of the transportation and logistics industry.

Our story from October explains these origins, results and impacts on today’s supply chain.