OTTAWA, Canada—A number of credit union leaders were honored with the World Council of Credit Union’s Distinguished Service Award here, while five young people were awarded scholarships and 12 more were presented with International Credit Union Development Educator (ICUDE) designations.
Among those recognized were:
Pete Crear, Melvin Edwards and Pat Fay with the Distinguished Service Award, the industry's top global honor. Crear was a long-time CUNA executive who served as WOCCU CEO from 2005-2011. Edwards, a St. Kitts and Nevis native, was the first Caribbean representative to serve as WOCCU chair (20072009). His development service included the foundation of St. Kitts Cooperative Credit Union, leading the Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions as chair and working with a variety of development agencies.
Fay spent 40 years in credit unions, working with the Irish league of Credit Unions and other CUs from emerging countries around the world.
- The five people to win scholarships from the World Council’s Young Credit Union People (WYCUP) program (which means an all-expense-paid attendance to next year's World Credit Union Conference in Gold Coast, Australia), were Caroline Domanski, No1 CopperPot CU in the U.K.; Christopher Morris of the National CU Foundation in the U.S.; Benjamin Janzen of Mennonite Savings and Credit Union in Canada; Eber Ostemberg of Sicredi Noroeste MT in Brazil, and Jenn Vandehaar of Healthcare & Municipal Employees' CU in Canada.
- Presented with designations as International CU Development Educators were: Beth Bruesch of Peterborough Community Credit Union in Canada; Courtney Moran of the Cornerstone CU League; Frank Diekmann of Credit Union Journal, Mary Beth Spuck of Twin Star Credit Union; David C. Richardson of the World Council; Theresa Hilinski of The Cooperative Trust; Lennox A. Bowman of General Employees Cooperative CU; Micah Taze Davis of BIU Members of Credit Union Co-op Society; Corinne Glasgow of Partners Credit Union; Colleen Bernabé of Central Co-operative Credit Union; Tracy Fletcher of Partners CU, and Elenita V. San Roque of the Asian Confederation of Credit Unions.
- Credit Union Central of Canada
presented its annual National Credit Union Awards for community economic development, innovation, leadership by young credit union professionals and lifetime contribution by a credit union system leader. Vancity credit unionreceived the National Credit Union Community Economic Development Award for its Resilient Capital Program, which provides financial solutions to social enterprises and mission-based businesses to support their growth.
