SAN FRANCISCO — From dragons and drums to lending challenges to come, America's Credit Union Conference kicked off with a bang on Monday.
Credit union executives eager to learn more about the ins and outs of loan participations and to get in some networking were first regaled with a parade by a local Chinese dance and drum troupe, an homage to the fact that San Francisco boasts the largest Chinese community outside of Asia.
Such an "extreme" introduction was well-suited to the conference's first keynote speaker, Steve Farber, founder of the Extreme Leadership Institute.
A member of San Diego's $2.5 billion Mission FCU, Farber told the gathering of credit union professionals and directors they need to be more familiar with a word not often heard in business, "love." Farber quoted Warren Buffet, who reportedly will not invest in a company until and unless he determines the CEO loves the business, rather than just loving money.
"Customer satisfaction has become a baseline," Farber declared. "Being satisfied is an expectation, but it is not enough. Customers have to love the business. Love leads to loyalty, to word of mouth, and forgiveness of mistakes."
The challenge for CUs, he continued, is to figure out how to change members' lives. And CEOs aren't the only ones responsible. Farber said many people who have no official authority manage to lead. "Credit unions need to create a culture of leadership despite position," he said.
Ready To Learn
As attendees waited for the opening general session to commence Monday evening, some had already gotten a head start. Alex Casillas, president of $35 million My Credit Union in nearby Redwood City, Calif., said he arrived early for the small credit union roundtable session in the afternoon.
"CUNA always puts on a good conference, and the roundtables for small credit unions are always good. There was a focus on lending and the challenges facing small credit unions."
According to Casillas, My CU still has seen little loan demand, so it is looking into participation loans. Currently it is in discussions to buy loan participations from $884 million
Other attendees, including a couple of first-timers, said they looked forward to gathering as much useful information as they could. Patric McIntosh, director for $104 million Arapahoe CU, Centennial, Colo., told CU Journal he came to ACUC because of its "overall size, ability to network and hopefully ability to learn."
"As a director we must stay on top of things," he said.
Laura Lesser, branch manager for $1.9 billion Spokane Teachers CU, Liberty Lake, Wash., said she was here for networking, learning about new technologies and Thursday's speaker, former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. "I want to learn how to motivate and get people to follow," she said.
Tim Savoy, director for $217 million Unity One CU, Fort Worth, Texas, has not been to a CUNA conference in several years. He wanted to do something different and visit family in the area. "I want to attend lending sessions. Our credit union is doing gangbusters on lending, but we always want new ideas."
Closing In On 100 Million Members
CUNA is heavily promoting the fact credit unions will reach 100 million members sometime this summer. Troy Stang, president and CEO of the Northwest Credit Union Association, said the ACUC is important due to the long history behind the meeting, which he added is reflected in the coming major membership milestone.
"As credit unions bring more value to consumers, the entire industry needs to continue to collaborate, which makes a conference such as this so important," he said. "Credit unions bring more than $100 of value per member per year. Multiply that by 100 million members and that is real value — credit unions make a large economic impact in the United States."
Denise Gabel, chief operating officer for the Northwest CU Association, said credit unions need to reach consumers who do not yet know about CUs by demonstrating what they do every day. "A conference such as this brings together a group of people who are all passionate about credit unions."
Kathy Garner, president and CEO of Catalyst Corporate Credit Union, Plano, Texas, said the national scope of ACUC brought her to the conference for the first time. "This gives us an opportunity to meet our members from all over the country."
