Over 50: Carol Todd at The Regent Talks About Banking, Brandon and ‘Carol’s Jewel Box'

Carol Todd was one of Brandon’s earliest bankers and her retirement in October, from Valrico State Bank, came with a desire not to slow down but to embrace her passions and zest for life even more.

She moved to Brandon in 1964, from Coral Gables, Miami, and in her 47 years in Brandon, she said she worked more than 35 years helping to grow the town’s overall banking business, her last 19 years at Valrico State Bank.

At the Healthy Women, Healthy Communities Women’s Expo at the Brandon Community Advantage Center, now known as The Regent, Todd was an exhibitor, selling jewelry she has accumulated over the years for her many activities as an active bank marketer and community promoter.

The April 16 exposition, billed as “a day of health, wellness and happiness” for women was sponsored by and South Bay Hospital and featured health and wellness exhibitors and talks and seminars featuring local health experts.

One of Todd’s greatest loves is Brandon, and especially the Brandon she grew up with as a young mother and professional.

“I fell in love with Brandon when I moved here, with the people and the camaraderie, the families, the good things in life,” Todd said. “Brandon had kind of a nature feel to it, with the squirrels and the trees. And when we bought our house here the realtor came over with the keys and said, ‘When you move here, you don’t even have to lock your door’ and that was true, then.”

Today, life is more complicated in Brandon, as the suburban sprawl has transformed the sleepy town into a more urban-suburban landscape, and groups working together to build one thing — a town — has become a community filled sometimes with competing interests and outlooks for getting the job done.

Moving forward, she said, Brandon’s future rests with the kids in school, and teaching them about the town’s history and its prospects for the future if people work together. As Todd put it: “Kids in school, get them at the root. The next generation will tell you what the community will be like.”

In each life the simple things persist, and in Todd’s case, that includes her love of family, her town and her passions for art and beautiful things and staying active.

And so we get to the jewelry, neatly wrapped in plastic bags, sold through “Carol’s  Jewel Box” at The Regent. The collection includes decorative and colorful pieces that have been worn with colorful and stately outfits over the years in her tireless work to help build business and commerce in Brandon.

“I’ve always had a love for beautiful things,” she said. “When I was working I had to dress up. I wasn’t behind a desk. I was out in the community. My job was to help bring business into the bank. I was the first woman to go around the community asking for business.”

Her first job was with the now-defunct Brandon State Bank. She followed with work at Barnett, and ended her career with Valrico State Bank, where she worked as vice president for business development.

In the early years, “people were shocked,” she said. “I said, ‘Why isn’t it possible for women to go out and knock on doors [for business]?”

And so Todd did, wearing her finest clothes and accessories to match.

“I have a weakness for jewelry and for pretty things and I like to decorate,” she said. “I’m retired now, but I’m not ready to retire.”

And so she was out and about April 16 with a display to sell her jewelry at a community event in a town she continues to love and care deeply about.

“I’m not one to sit at home,” she said. “What I like to do is something with people. I like anything to do with people. I have a zest for life. I feel like I’m 35 in my head and I still have a twinkle in my eye for having fun.”

A past honorary mayor of Brandon, Todd has filled many community leadership roles, including serving as director of the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce, chair of the Greater Riverview Chamber of Commerce, member of the Hillsborough Community College Foundation Board of Directors, president of the University of South Florida Psychiatry Center Board of Trustees, president of the Center Place Fine Arts and Civic Association and community service chair of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Brandon.

She has received the Pioneering Woman of the Year award from the American Business Women’s Association and the Alice B. Tompkins Community Service award from the Roundtable Charities of Greater Brandon, commonly known as the Community Roundtable and formerly known as the Presidents’ Roundtable.