ALEXANDRIA, Va.-NCUA said last week that Len Skiles, the agency's longest-serving executive, will retire as executive director at year-end, after 38 years with the agency.
Skiles, 67, who has played a role in most of the major NCUA initiatives over the past two decades, will be succeeded as the agency's chief operating officer by David Marquis, the director of examinations and insurance for the past 14 years. Marquis' job as chief examiner will be filled after the first of the year.
Both men are among a handful of senior career executives who carry out NCUA policy through the comings and goings of politically appointed NCUA Board members.
"Len Skiles has been an integral part of NCUA for most of its history, and he will leave behind a legacy of excellence," said NCUA Chairman Michael Fryzel in a statement. "It will be a challenge to the rest of us to live up to the standards that he has set...The turbulent financial times call for a steady, seamless transition, and Dave Marquis' direct oversight of NCUA's supervision programs...make him the ideal replacement."
Skiles began his career with NCUA as a staff attorney in the general counsel's office in 1973 and has served as the agency's deputy general counsel, director of its southwest regional office and head of the Asset Management and Assistance Center, which manages assets from liquidated credit unions. Under Skiles, the Austin, Texas-based liquidation center was at the center of the last major financial crisis for credit unions when it managed almost $200 million in assets from failed credit unions in the southwest and New England in the early 1990s.
More recently, Skiles headed the agency's study of credit union service to the underserved that was ordered by Congress, and helped negotiate the first contract with NCUA's new examiners' union last year.
He was appointed NCUA executive director, in February 2001 after then-NCUA Chairman Dennis Dollar decided the chief operating officer should be appointed from within the agency, rather than be a political appointee offered up every time a new NCUA Chairman took office. "I was committed to the belief that at that point in time the executive director should be someone whose standing within the agency and outside was strong enough to sustain the decision to go to a careerist," said Dollar last week. "Len had the respect from within and without the agency, leading me to believe he was the logical choice. I still believe he was a good choice."
"He was my go-to guy in most of the things we did," said Dollar, noting a review of hiring policies after a scandal in the prior administration; major amendments to the field of membership rules and a major restructuring of NCUA that reduced regional offices to five from six and moved the west coast office to Tempe, Ariz., from San Francisco, while reducing staffing. "We needed someone who was respected within the agency and who would not be viewed as carrying out a political vendetta," Dollar said of the restructuring. "Everyone did not always agree with him, but they respected him."
Marquis has been with NCUA since 1978 in multiple roles, and was named director of the Office of Examinations and Insurance in 1994.
