Ex-State Regulator Hired To Run Failed CUConvert

VANCOUVER, Wash. - (05/09/05) -- Columbia CU, the failed credit unionconvert whose attempt to switch to a mutual savings banks last yearcaused a member revolt, said Friday it has hired well-known formerstate credit union regulator J. Parker Cann as its new presidentand CEO. Cann, who has worked as vice president and chief operatingofficer at credit union giant Arrowhead CU, in San Bernardino,Calif, the past three years, will succeed David Doss, the chiefengineer of the failed conversion who left Columbia CU earlier thisyear to head Arizona State Savings & CU. Doss and directors ofColumbia CU were targeted by distraught members of the then-$620million credit union after NCUA ruled the ballot to convert to abank was fraught with improprieties and vote-rigging, leading to anunprecedented attempt to recall the eight directors who voted forthe controversial conversion bid. The directors narrowly survivedthe first member vote in two decades but the majority of theconversion supporters have either been ousted from the board orhave departed through retirement. Cann was director of WashingtonDepartment of Financial Institutions' division of credit unions forseven years before going to Arrowhead CU.