With the support of her family in France, Manon Labeur played golf and earned her MBA from UMSL and landed a job with Commerce Trust in Clayton. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

The greens at the Hardscrabble Country Club in Fort Smith, Arkansas, were pretty unforgiving during the 2021 Hardscrabble Invitational, so University of Missouri–St. Louis golfer Manon Labeur knew she would need to land her tee shot well short of the flag at the 144-yard, par-3 eighth hole.

She landed the shot with her 9-iron a little deep in her target zone and bent down to pick up her tee, assuming the ball would trickle through the back, onto the fringe. But when she heard a commotion near the green, she knew something special had happened.

“I was like, ‘I made it?’” Labeur said. “And then I just ran over and started jumping. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s awesome!’”

It was the second hole-in-one of her golfing career – the first one had happened a few years earlier, when she was playing in her native France with her younger brother, Emmanuel, as her caddy – and was one of many special UMSL memories for Labeur. In that 2020-21 season, she also finished second at the Natural State Classic in March, shooting a 1-under par 143 over two rounds. That happened the same weekend she found out her grandfather back in France had passed away. “Everyone on the team was so great to me that weekend,” she said.

Labeur capped her career with a flourish. She finished tied for 6th overall in the 2002 NCAA Division II East Regional, a 15-team field, shooting a 70 in the final round to help the Tritons finish fifth and qualify for the NCAA D-II Championship for only the fourth time in school history. At the national tournament in Gainesville, Georgia, Labeur was the Tritons’ top finisher, shooting 75-76-79 over the three days to finish tied for 41st.

“That was my last tournament as a college golfer, and it was awesome,” she said. “It was my first national tournament. When you arrive at nationals, you don’t have anything to prove anymore, because you made it all the way to nationals. I mean, you’re trying to do your best because that’s all you can do. Troy (Halterman, the UMSL golf coach) walked with me on the last nine holes, so that was really cool.”

Labeur was out of eligibility as an athlete after that tournament, but her UMSL experience was still going strong. She had already earned a bachelor’s degree in France, so she was pursuing her MBA with an emphasis in finance at UMSL. For Labeur, the MBA classes matched her approach to learning.

“I just like how the professors are very personable,” she said. “Most of the classes I’ve been in, and especially during my MBA when the class sizes are smaller, the professors know you by name. They share their own life experience with you. It’s not like you just go to class and they teach you, but you get to know them on a deeper level because they share their life experience or professional experience, or stories they’ve come across, or they talk about their past students and things like this.

“And in the MBA classes, it’s not just theory that you hear about. It’s about how you apply what you’re learning. I was doing an MBA in finance, and I took a job in finance. And when I first started, I would think, ‘Oh, I saw that in class.’ And right now, I’m studying for a certification and I’m like, ‘Wait, I had a class about that, so that kind of makes sense now.’”

After she finished playing golf at UMSL, Labeur worked as a graduate teaching assistant, splitting her time assisting Bindu Arya in the Department of Global Leadership and Management and Nasser Arshadi in the Department of Finance and Legal Studies. Working for Arshadi, Labeur helped set up the annual Finance Career Conference for students, and that’s where she first met representatives from Commerce Trust. Arshadi’s wife works at Commerce, so she asked if Labeur would be interested in learning more about the company.

“I said, ‘Yes, of course,’” Labeur said. “So I came and spent a day, and it was really great to meet all of those different people and learn more about what they were doing. I really liked the industry.”

When she heard about an internship at Commerce, she applied and was hired.

“That’s how I started,” Labeur said with a laugh, “and then I never left.”

After the internship ended, she was brought on as part of the Ascend Training Program. Trainees work on credit underwriting packets as part of their day-to-day job, with the other part being to network around the bank and discover different departments.

After 11 months in the program, Labeur was hired at Commerce Trust as a private client advisor associate in April 2024, and this July she was promoted to senior private client advisor associate.

“I like the relationship with people, because the trust manages family relationships,” she said. “I enjoy that. I like the trust administration side of things, where it’s a lot of legal documents, but also making sure we’re there for people’s life on day-to-day things. It’s really interesting to see the dynamics of families. And people are just really great to work with in my department.”

Labeur appreciates working with families because the support of her parents, Catherine and Jean-Paul Labeur, helped give her the confidence to step out of her comfort zone in France and move to the United States to play golf at UMSL. Her family had taken a few trips to the U.S. while she was growing up, giving Manon and her younger siblings – twins Emmanuel and Agathe – a taste of the world.

“My parents have always supported me and my siblings in everything we want to do,” Labeur said. “They said, ‘Just do it. If you don’t like it, you can come back and get your master’s degree in France. Everything will be fine, and the important thing is at least you’re trying.’”

Emmanuel came to the U.S. to play collegiate golf, too, and after finishing his time at Central Baptist College, he’s starting his MBA program at Arkansas State University. Agathe studied in Greece, and she pursued her dream of becoming a pilot.

“I have no words for my parents; they are just awesome people that support me and all their kids,” Labeur said. “When I told my parents, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about going to the U.S.,’ they were like, ‘Sure, go ahead!’ They come visit all the time. My mom is actually arriving in a few months. She’s going to spend about a month here and my dad’s coming a week later for the rest of the time.”