Melanie Dressel

Melanie Dressel, president and CEO of Tacoma-based Columbia Bank and a community leader, died Sunday February 19 2017 at age 64. Ms. Dressel, who had served in the top job at Columbia Bank since the early 2000s, guided the bank’s growth into the second-largest Washington-based banking company by market value. Born and raised in Colville, Stevens County, where her parents owned a jewelry and gifts store, Ms. Dressel got her first job in banking as a commercial real-estate loan clerk at the Tacoma branch of what was then Bank of California. She worked in banking ever since. Ms. Dressel joined the then-tiny, Bellevue-based Columbia State Bank around 1993 when W.W. “Bill” Philip, former CEO of Puget Sound National Bank, urged her to come aboard. Ms. Dressel had started a private-banking operation at Puget Sound National Bank, which was sold in 1993 to KeyBank. She has served on the boards of the Washington Bankers Association, American Bankers Association and Puget Sound Energy, and had been involved with ArtsFund, the Executive Council for a Greater Tacoma, Washington Roundtable and the Washington State Historical Society. Ms. Dressel is survived by her husband, Robert Dressel Jr.; sons Robert Dressel III (wife Kara Dressel) and Brent Dressel (wife Sophia Dressel); and two grandchildren.