MADISON, Wis.—The National Credit Union Foundation has named Sarah Canepa Bang, president of CO-OP Shared Branching-FSCC, LLC, as the winner of the 2014 Herb Wegner Award for Individual Achievement.
The award is the first of the three Herb Wegner winners to be announced by the Foundation, and are considered to be the highest awards presented in the U.S. credit union community.
“One word to describe Sarah is dynamo,’” said John Gregoire, chair of NCUF Wegner Awards Selection Committee and president of The ProCon Group in Madison, Wis., in a statement released this morning. “Sarah is one of the most impressive, assertive, outgoing personalities in the entire credit union movement. Her energy knows no bounds, helping her become a major contributor to the success of the Credit Unions for Kids program and building shared branching in to a powerhouse delivery system.”
Canepa Bang started her career at CUNA in 1983 in the its newly developed Internet office and later during the 1980s moved to positions with the Oregon Credit Union League and Massachusetts Credit Union League, before returning the Oregon league has EVP. During her tenure at the Oregon Credit Union League, she was also chief operating officer of CU Access, an ATM and shared branching network which the league ran, and Automated Item Management, the Northwest's largest and most successful check processing operation.
In 1995, Canepa Bang established a two-year associate degree program in credit union management through Mt. Hood Community College. “She recognized that credit unions were a promising place to build careers and found a way to meet the educational needs of credit union employees,” the NCUF said. “She also initiated Loans Today, one of the first 24/7 lending call centers in the nation created to enhance a credit union's ability to process member loan requests via telephone.”
Canepa Bang has been a driver of shared branching and in 1999 was named chief executive officer of FSCC, helping to grow that organization into one of the most successful credit union CUSOs in the nation. FSCC was the first network to pioneer the outlet concept in shared branching. FSCC has since merged with CO-OP Shared Branching.
Canepa Bang is also being recognized as a longtime supporter of the Credit Unions for Kids (CU4Kids) program and was one of the key founders of the program while at the Oregon Credit Union League. Since the start of the program in 1986, it has raised over $13 million dollars in the Northwest market. She also played an instrumental part in getting Children's Miracle Network Hospitals to pick up the CU4Kids program and help it become a national program in 1997. In 2006, she was named to the board of the Credit Union Miracle Day Foundation and was also appointed to the Credit Unions for Kids National Advisory Board for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. She continues to co-host the CU4K wine auction fund raiser Oregon/Washington.
Canepa-Bang will be recognized at the Herb Wegner Memorial Awards dinner hosted by NCUF at the Grand Hyatt Washington on February 24, 2014.
