TALLAHASSE, Fla. — Patrick La Pine has a tall order in front of him when he becomes the first-ever president/CEO of the League of Southeastern Credit Unions in the first week of August. The new entity, a combination of the Alabama and Florida state leagues, is essentially a clean slate as the only action it has taken is electing a new board, comprised of eight representatives from each state.
"That's the extent of what has happened. At this point they wanted to leave the consolidation of the staff, the service corps and deciding where the new headquarters will be to the prevue of the new CEO," La Pine pointed out. "A lot of heavy lifting to be done over the next couple of years."
La Pine pledged to recommend a new headquarters location to the board and put together a new organizational chart by the end of the year. Consolidating departments and re-assigning staff will take at least a year, as full integration is not expected until the end of 2010. Though the leagues will obviously maintain two different government affairs offices at the respective state capitals, the IT and human resources departments will be shaved down and representation at the federal level will also be pared to reflect the reality of one league for two states. "That's where you're going to see a lot of cost-savings over time in the merger," La Pine said.
For the rest of this year, the new chief executive will evenly divide his time between the Birmingham and Tallahassee offices as he gets to know staffers in both offices and understand the way the leagues function now so he can better flesh out consolidation plans. When he's not in those offices, La Pine will visit the 20 chapters the two combined leagues boast.
"The main focus for the rest of this year is getting to know the staff and organizations, and getting to know the credit unions. I'm going to really get out and listen to them. I want to hear from the credit unions what they want to see in their new league," he said.
Though the League of Southeastern Credit Unions will serve Florida and Alabama, La Pine does not see this as taking over for Guy Hood and Gary Wolter, who led those respective leagues. "Those gentlemen are leaving very long shadows on the credit union movement," said La Pine. "We have a blank canvas on what we want this entity to look like going forward."
Crafting a new league will certainly be a tough task, but La Pine is confident that his experience as executive VP of association services at the Michigan CU League will serve him well. "I feel like I have a very strong background to bring to this position on the association side," he said, calling Michigan "one of the true leaders" in the CU community and noting that its size is about equal to the new combined league he will command.
