BETHALTO, Ill.-Alan Meyer won't take over as CEO at 1st MidAmerica CU here until June 1, but he's hopeful that few will even notice the change.
Meyer, currently COO at the 45,000-member, $482-million credit union, is set to succeed Don Reedy as chief executive.
"A question a lot of the staff members have had since the announcement is 'How will things change when Don leaves?'" said Meyer. "The answer we've tried to have its 'Hopefully they won't.' We've been successful for a lot of years based on how Don has managed, and we believe we can be successful for a lot of years if we have that same philosophy."
That means continuing to hire the right people and then delegate authority to them, said Meyer. The staff already understands the strategic plan set forth by the board, and "we've had this process in place for a number of years and it's worked for us," said Meyer.
1st MidAmerica hopes that plan will propel it to 5% loan growth for the year and 4% membership growth.
With a strategic planning process and organizational culture already in place, Meyer can focus on other matters. While to date he has dealt with the day-to-day operation of the institution and the side of the CU that makes money, "the new responsibilities are a bit more of a shift to the expense side of the income statement."
One trend in that realm that Meyer expects to continue is reallocating staff resources as more members move from brick and mortar to e-services, and the need to shift staff from member-facing positions to support positions without adding personnel costs.
Reputational Risk Issues
Meyer expexts the biggest issue to be that which he doesn't expect: that is, dealing with unforeseen problems and challenges.
"Reputational risk is one of the things I think about the most," he said, pointing to a recent data breach at a regional grocery chain. "They say they've got it contained now, but ... you wonder how much it's going to cost them in terms of hard dollars from lawsuits and everything else, as well as people that just won't trust them anymore."
Particularly from an FI's perspective, said Meyer, once those kinds of issues make it online, it can already be too late. "Whatever somebody puts out there in the cloud, whether it's true or not, that becomes perception."
So how can an 1st MidAmerica protect against that?
"You just hope you have the right staff in place in place in terms of a service perspective," he said. "If a member has an issue, hopefully they're going to call and talk to a staff member or a manager. It's important that the people are trained to handle the members and take care of them in the fashion they're looking for so that it doesn't escalate beyond what you can control."
