FORT PIERCE FOLKS
The BANKER
BY CAMILLE YATES
Fort Pierce has seen a lot of changes over the past six
22
decades, but one thing that has remained the same is
Pat Alley’s smiling face. She keeps on smiling, even
when life takes the occasional wrong turn. Her husband,
Bob, had a life-threatening illness recently, and Riverside
bank, which she led, failed last spring, but Alley still has
a positive outlook on life and her hometown.
“I’ve been so fortunate that I’ve never had to move anywhere
else,” she says. “Bob worked for Winn-Dixie for 25
years and every time he got a promotion, we thought that we
would have to move, but thank goodness we didn’t.”
“It was fun growing up in Fort Pierce,” she says. “You just
didn’t worry about much. People in the community cared
about one another. As an example, in the 1950s, my sister
and I would walk from our house out on Angle Road to the
Community Center on Melody Lane for ballet and tap dance
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ED DRONDOSKI
Pat Alley began her career in Fort Pierce banking in 1965 and worked her way to president of Riverside Bank. She’s now
vice president of business development at TD Bank.