MIAMI—Marti Mang launched her banking career over 30 years ago in the Rocky Mountain region. Today, she's senior vice president in the corporate lending area of TotalBank in Miami.

Over the course of her career, her assignments have been diverse. She started off performing director's examinations for the Denver Clearing House Association. She's also served as a chief credit policy officer, regional director of special assets and a commercial real estate and construction lender.

Now serving as president of CREW-Miami, many of her clients may not know how hard she works to help other women rise up in the commercial real estate industry. They also may not know how much she gives back to the community at large. GlobeSt.com dived into both those topics in the final installment of our exclusive interview with Mang.

GlobeSt.com: Tell us about your community involvement. For example, how did you get involved being a host family to college students from your native Latvia?

Mang: It actually happened by accident. Someone that I know in Atlanta told me there was a female student coming to play basketball at Florida International University (FIU) from my home country, Latvia, and so I called the FIU athletic department and told them I was from Latvia and wanted to host the student for dinner at my home to make her feel welcome. I invited her over for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then in her junior year, two more Latvian students came and I just kept hosting these girls from my home country, and eventually other countries too, as they have roommates.

I'm currently hosting one student from Latvia and one from Hungary. I've taken the students to the Florida Keys, Disney World, and have even hosted their families at my house.

I feel like an aunt to all these young women and they keep coming back after they graduate to visit. Recently, a Latvian student who graduated eight years ago came with her father to visit me and invited me to her wedding.

GlobeSt.com: You are a few months into the role as president of CREW-Miami, what are some of the initiatives you are focusing on driving and what results are you seeing so far?

Mang: Our main initiative this year at CREW-Miami is to “Commit to Connect.” We are focusing on connecting with people and connecting with each other, through more face-to-face meetings and even social media.

I have personally committed to connect. Almost every Monday, I have committed to having lunch with different small groups of women from the organization, where we talk about our goals, our accomplishments, things we enjoy outside of work, and how we can help each other succeed in business.

It's so nice because I've really seen these lunches take off and seen the women that come to these lunches grow within our organization. Suddenly, they are serving on a committee or they are taking leadership roles and you really see the benefit of making the time to connect.

We've also arranged educational breakfasts recently for which we were able to get Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit for and are working on getting CLE for any future breakfasts we organize. This allows members who are legal professionals who attend to be able to turn these hours into the Florida Bar to earn credits.

Want to read more about Mang? Check out the other articles in this series, including: How Community Banking Has Changed; Why Do CRE Women Make Less Than Men?; How Can CRE Industry Attract More Women?; and How to Attract More CRE Millennials.