North Community Bank’s (mostly) bearded senior CRE lending team: Bill Chioros, Joanne Campanile, John Barkidjija and head of lending Don Meyer. One of the bank’s analysts decided to champion a No Shave November fundraiser, John tells us, and senior management provided matching funding. Over 30 male members of the team participated in a Best Beard contest, raising $6,000 for the American Cancer Society. New investors pumped $200M-plus into NCB in 2013, John says, and he’s busy building a CRE originations platform focused on Chicago area loans between $1M and $20M. (The bank has closed over $110M in loans this year.)

On the firm’s second annual company-wide volunteering day, the Paine/Wetzel TCN Worldwide team volunteered at Feed My Starving Children, a local nonprofit where volunteers hand-pack meals specifically formulated for malnourished children that are shipped to nearly 70 countries worldwide. Snapped: Phil Reiff Sr., Hiloh Izumom, Brian Wabick (back), Teri McGough, Sylvia Tabor, Emily Dretzka, Jeff Girling, Kathy Abruzzo, Jerry Sullivan, Torre Dennedy, Ed Wabick (back), Bill Kerrins, Julie Foley, Jimena Sayavedra, Terry Lynch (back), Patrick Fitzgerald and Phil Reiff Jr. “It’s important that we come together as the Paine/Wetzel family and be ambassadors of change,” says Jerry Sullivan, Paine/Wetzel president.