Q: What led you to the credit union sector and to United States Senate Federal Credit Union?
A: I spent the first 20 years of my career in the banking sector, but I always heard a lot about credit unions and people helping people. That model really interested me, so eventually I left banking and came to the United States Senate Federal Credit Union in 2000; I was the branch manager of our flagship branch at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. When I left a year later, I joined the USSFCU board and continued to serve there for almost 17 years. During that time I was COO at two different credit unions, and then for eight years I was CEO of Government Printing Office Federal Credit Union. In January 2019 I returned to USSFCU as EVP and chief retail officer as part of the succession plan for our former CEO, who left in July.
Q: Can you describe your leadership philosophy?
A: I’ve always been a transformational leader; it’s an intrinsic part of who I am.
Transformational leadership means leading by example, leading by empathy and involving people. Embracing new ideas and being adaptable. That’s always been my style — influencing folks to follow a vision through inspiration, but doing it with an understanding that even though we’re in a highly technological society, people are still our main resource.
Q: USSFCU was the best-performing credit union in 2018, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s a huge jump from No. 44 in 2017. To what do you attribute that level of growth and success?
A: While I was on the USSFCU board, we talked about our strategy for growth. Initially we looked at doing mergers with some of the smaller credit unions in the area. When that didn’t come to fruition, we pursued an organic growth strategy that included the relationships we already had with our lending programs. We grew our loan portfolio, which was an aggressive approach for us, and then raised deposit rates to give more back to our members. At one point we were offering the highest five-year CD rate in the country, which resulted in a big influx in deposits. The S&P Global article focused primarily on our asset, deposit and lending growth. By the end of March 2019, we had over $964 million in assets, an all-time high. We’re very proud of that, as we continue toward $1 billion.
Q: What are some of the challenges you see as potentially affecting USSFCU’s growth, and how do you plan to address them?
A: We had 25 percent growth in 2017 and almost that much in 2018. In 2019 when I joined, we looked at slowing down that growth a little and how best to deploy some of that liquidity. We will continue to grow our first mortgage program. We feel confident in our position right now, on the brink of breaking $1 billion in assets, and we’re going to let that happen organically while we concentrate on our core Senate membership.
Q: In your new role as president and CEO, what trends and technologies do you plan to invest in to support USSFCU’s growth?
A: Strategically, we’ve got to make sure we have the delivery channels available to members outside the Washington, D.C., metro area, so that when they leave this area we still cultivate those relationships and keep those members. Locally, we have invested in strategically placed, interactive ATMs that can do anything a teller can do, and we’ve beefed up our online delivery channels. We’re also investing heavily in training, so that our staff remains up to date on all the new technology, resulting in an overall better member experience.
This article was published in the September-October 2019 edition of The NAFCU Journal magazine.
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