Come November, Teresa Brackins will have worked at CCB Community Bank for 40 years.

She had worked with American Mortgage in Houston, before moving to Andalusia. She put in two applications. CCB called within a week, and she’s been with them ever since.

“I worked in bookkeeping and did overdrafts,” she said. “It’s a big job now, should have been then. It was hard.”

In those days, all of the work was done manually.

Brackins said she did that work for 10 years, but also would fill in for others, and eventually learned the whole department. Shirley Helms was the comptroller, and Brackins worked as her assistant for 20 years until Wendy Butler moved into that role. Now, she works with her.

“Other than when I first began, and worked with customers who had overdrafts, I never dealt with customers,” Brackins said. “I always had a back office-type job.”

Brackins had the first personal computer in the bank.

“Shirley (Helms) thought I was so smart because I went to college and learned a little bit about it,” Brackins recalled.

As in so many other fields, technology has been the biggest change at CCB in the past four decades, Brackins said.

“Mr. (Tom) Lane believes in technology,” she said. “If you don’t keep up, you fall behind. He has been really good to keep us up to date.”

Brackins said when she first took her job 40 years ago, she never dreamed she would spend her career at CCB.

“I am a creature of habit, and I never really wanted to leave,” she said. “I’m happy here, and they have treated me well. I’m perfectly happy with what I do.”