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Bradley Gremillion leads a double life.

Gremillion, a senior vice president at American Gateway Bank, works in commercial lending. He also serves as mortgage lending division manager, which handles residential-home loans.

There’s a world of difference between them in regulations and procedures.

“I’d love to say I split my time equally between the two, but some days its 70% mortgage lending and 30% commercial, or vice versa,” he says. “I enjoy both, so it’s a challenge that I really do love.”

The sectors have their unique set of hiccups because of current economic conditions, further complicated by dozens of new regulations and policies since last year.

“We always try to comply and, here lately, the rules and regulations continue to get stronger and more stringent,” Gremillion says. “The challenge is to take in the information we are getting and the rules that are handed down to the banking industry, and try to disseminate that information to the general public and specifically to our clients.”

Banking runs in Gremillion’s blood. His great-grandfather was a founder of Sicily Island State Bank, and Gremillion grew up watching his grandmother and father sit on the board of directors.

Though Gremillion didn’t initially want to be a banker, the tight job market made a position as a management trainee in a City National Bank branch located inside an Albertson’s look attractive. Through years of working at several private and community banks, he was drawn to commercial lending and real estate. That interest has served him well since joining American Gateway in 2008.

“You’re always going to gravitate, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, to what you feel your strengths are, and I feel that’s what’s happened with me,” he says. “Through the years, it’s been a gradual procession to where I am today.”

Gremillion is president of the Playmakers of Baton Rouge Youth Theatre Company board of directors and volunteers with Junior Achievement and St. Aloysius School. He also was a Federal Bureau of Investigation Citizen’s Academy volunteer.

“I like being involved,” he says. “I feel like I’m part of the solution when I can get involved whatever that solution might be.”

Age: 36

What is your best business advice? “Always follow the Golden Rule. It has never failed me. I also try 
to walk in someone else’s shoes before I make any decisions.”

Click here for the complete list of 2009's Forty Under 40 winners.