CUJ EXIT Interview

Published June 27, 2008, 1:38 p.m. EDT

Updated August 27, 2020, 1:10 a.m. EDT

4 Min Read

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - William “Bill” F. Connors recently announced he would be retiring as CEO of the $475-million Purdue Employees FCU on July 1. Conners began his career in credit unions in 1970 and has been active in numerous credit union and community organizations over that time. Below he shares some of his thoughts and observations:

Processing Content

CUJ: How did you come to be involved in credit unions?

Connors: I was working as an efficiency expert for an electronics manufacturer in 1970 and they experienced their first work stoppage in the company’s history. Because I had some IT experience and could write code in several business languages, I ended up in the finance department during the strike. All the credit union employees were union members and were on strike, so I helped keep the credit union operating during the strike. When the strike was over they offered me a newly created position of general manager (what we commonly know today as the CEO). When asked if I thought I could run the credit union, I said “Of course”–I had all of my accounts there.

CUJ: What strikes you as having changed or evolved the most during your career?

Connors: This is a tough one as I have been at this for 38 years–really, I think everything has changed except our mission. Credit unions were established on the East Coast as early as 1909 to provide credit at a fair price to working-class people–not the underserved as we are hearing today–but workers, with sustainable wages, who may not have had assets to use as collateral for credit. If you look back at that period, if a family didn’t have assets, banks wouldn’t loan them money and the wage earner (perhaps it’s today’s middle class) had to go to loan sharks and pay usurious rates. Those loan sharks are still out there today dressed as check cashers or payday lenders. Credit unions are needed just as much today as we were nearly 100 years ago. Much has changed–the need for credit unions hasn’t.

CUJ: How did your own management skills develop or improve during your career?

Connors: What gave me the first opportunity were operational and tactical skills. As I matured in the business, I tried to maintain those skills, but really worked to develop a strategic focus. Also, I believe you can manage a business, but you lead people. My success over the past 38 years is because I am a good decision-maker, I tend to look at things a little differently than others and most importantly, I realized there are people who know a lot more than I do–and so I try to hire them. Successful leaders tend to hire people that have skills that complement their own, not replicate them.

CUJ: if you could give one piece of advice to a new credit union CEO, what would it be?

Connors: Never lose sight of who owns the credit union and build your strategic and business plans around enhancing member value. While our balance sheet, product offerings and delivery channels look dramatically different than they did when I started, every decision we make is predicated on the impact it might have on our members. It may sound old-fashioned in today’s environment where we have billion-dollar credit unions merging or converting to banks, but it has worked for me at four different credit unions. At PEFCU our core purpose is “to be our member’s financial partner for life.” Our simple strategy is to: 1) Acquire new members; 2) WOW our members with exceptional service and (simplified) products; 3) Deepen the relationship with members, and 4) Retain a higher percentage of members. There are many necessary components in our plans to support this strategy, but the focus is squarely on our members.

CUJ: How do you view the future for the credit union community? Risks? Growth opportunities?

Connors: I think the next five years will define the future of credit unions. Personally, I believe credit unions are needed as much today as they were in the early 1900s when the first credit union was chartered. As America moves from a manufacturing base to a service base some of our members have the need for small-business loans–loans many of the larger banks don’t want to make. That doesn’t make us any less a credit union.

By comparison, bank assets and services have grown at a much faster pace than those of credit unions. What we can’t do is to allow the banking lobby to define what a credit union is or should be.

As a cooperative we serve our members. Part of that “service” is to not put them into loans that aren’t in their best interests just to make a higher margin. We have two full-time credit counselors on staff and we teach financial literacy in our schools and throughout the community. Regardless of our asset size or breadth of services, how could anyone say we aren’t living Filene’s dream? Who would do this if credit unions went away–the banks? I think not!