Organisation is the key to success for Bermuda Commercial Bank senior corporate administrator Melissa Smith.

The mother of five ? yes, five ? children was named 2004 employee of the year at the Bermuda Commercial Bank earlier this year for her service and commitment to the organisation.

But Ms Smith, who joined the bank at 17 in 2003 as a teller, is also actively involved in the West End Primary PTA as a member of the executive committee, plays netball regularly to keep fit and has even recently started football training as part of her fitness regime.

"I've always liked a challenge and I've been very organised; I always say organisation is the key," she said with quiet confidence.

On first meeting Ms Smith, one of the many striking things about her is her calm, almost serene attitude.

She joined the bank in 1993 as a teller when she was 17, fresh from gaining bookkeeping qualifications at the Bermuda College after high school. Now at 31, and having steadily worked her way up to her current position while balancing her responsibilities to her growing family, she smiles as she remembers her nerves as a new recruit.

"It was very overwhelming at first, going straight from the College," she says. "It was my first job, I'd never even had a summer job before then. But it was interesting and I got to meet all sorts of people."

She soon overcame her nervousness as her interest in banking broadened and she began to ask her colleagues in the corporate administration area about their work.

"Whenever I could I would touch base with the corporate administrators and help out as well, " says Ms Smith. "It's a small organisation here and everyone pretty much helped each other, but I got really interested in the corporate administration side of things and I kept asking questions and getting involved."

When an opening became available due to someone leaving the organisation three years later, she saw the opportunity and seized it.

"I said to myself 'OK, this is my chance'," she says. "I was a bit nervous about it, but I asked about the position and let them know I wanted to try for it. And they let me try! First only as a junior of course, but they let me."

She then proceeded to make the most of the opportunity by starting to build up her qualifications, despite by this time being a new mother at the age of 21 when she and her partner Stephen welcomed their first child.

"I had the bookkeeping qualifications at that point but I wanted to know more," she says. "So I started a Chartered Institute of Banking course and it seemed that from that management got really interested in me."

She continued taking banking courses and participated in a variety of in-house training programmes, always seeking to improve her knowledge. After being promoted to full corporate administrator status in 1998 and taking on her own portfolio of clients "I really got to understand even more about the job and enjoyed dealing with the clients. I was also asked to step in for my superior when she was out on vacation, which meant I got more knowledge and experience which was really good."

By 1999 she had been promoted again, to senior corporate administrator level and on the personal front, mother of two boys. While she enjoyed her work and building up her experience at a new level, she was still young and after seven years in the position she decided she would do something different.

"But sometimes you have to take yourself out of a situation to realise what you truly want," she says. "I managed a friend's business, a clothing store, for a year-and-a-half but I knew my love was banking and I was good at it."

She had maintained links with friends and colleagues at BCB and, after making timely enquiries about possible opportunities in corporate administration just as there was a need for qualified and experienced person to fill a vacant post, she was welcomed back to the organisation.

"The difference this time was that I was more mature and knew this was what I wanted," says Ms Smith. "It's a great organisation and the best thing is that there is always a challenge in what I do, first in dealing with clients from all over the world and also with working with all the staff. And I like that it's a small company, we're like a family, you don't get lost here."

In her role in the Banking Section of the Banking and Custodial Department at BCB, she now deals with corporate clients all over the world from the US to Europe to Asia,

Dominique Smith, senior vice president at BCB, said the bank embraced Ms Smith again after her break from the organisation because "she is what I call a solid employee; even with all the responsibilities she has she's committed and focused".

"I really think that we don't give young people enough credit sometimes and we tend to be so negative about them," she adds. "Melissa shows that you can give young people the opportunity to prove themselves and if they do then give them the tools they need to progress. And she proves that young people don't always need a college degree for that to happen.

"What this says to young people is to look for opportunities as they arise and go for them," Mrs Smith continues. "What it says to employers is to give young people the opportunities and then the guidance to succeed; you might be amazed at what you get back.

"Melissa continues to deliver; she has people contact every day and her clients are totally satisfied. It's amazing, she just never seems to get flustered."

"My attitude is always more to joke and be positive and I always take the view that things will turn out fine, so I think that helps!" says Ms Smith with a laugh.

That attitude also helps her to balance her role as a mom with the job she enjoys so much.

"And I'm very fortunate, Stephen is very supportive," she says. "My mom and my aunt are very supportive too, and the lady who looked after me when I was growing up now looks after my kids. And our kids are great; we're lucky, they're very good and they don't get sick, knock on wood!"

Their children, three boys and two girls, range in age from one to eight years old and she admits that the greatest challenge as they are growing up is to ensure she gets to spend enough time with them.

"It's a challenge when I have to work overtime, for example, because I try to make sure I'm involved in their schoolwork," she says. "And like everyone else with children you want to be there for their activities, field trips and football games and so on; sometimes it's hard to do it but I get to as much as I can. Trying to be there for them all the time and being there for your job is hard for everyone who works and has kids."

Looking forward, she remains ambitious and has set her sights on further studies while continuing to build up her experience with a view to perhaps reaching management level within the bank in the future. Later this year she will be taking a three-part supervisory level course which will run from June through to October.

"And I want to pursue an Associates Degree in business and see where that takes me," she says. "I'm trying not to stay in one spot mentally as well as in my education. I still want to gain knowledge, and there's always something to learn. Basically, the world is always changing and you have to move with it."