WASHINGTON New NCUA Board member Rick Metsger told attendees to NAFCU’s annual Congressional Caucus he believes in the traditional credit union concept of the common bond and asked the 450 credit union executives to serve as a common bond between their members and the NCUA, to preserve consumers’ faith and trust in the credit union system.
Metsger, in his first public appearance since joining the NCUA Board, said similar to those in attendance he traveled to Washington as a credit union volunteer and lobbied for passage of HR 1151, the CU Membership Access Act.
The newest NCUA Board member told the attendees he strove for bipartisanship when he served in the Oregon Senate and hopes to achieve similar consensus while at NCUA. “The outcome is more important than my dialogue and that’s the philosophy that I’m going to take to the NCUA,” said Metsger, referring to partisan bickering in Washington that has halted progress on important issues.
Metsger said his focus on the NCUA Board member will be to weigh the benefits of the agency’s actions with the burdens on the industry.
Metsger, who served on the board of Portland Teachers CU (now OnPoint Community CU), and was a broadcast journalist, was sworn into a six-year term on the NCUA Board on Aug. 23.
