SAN FRANCISCO – Patelco CU, the nation’s tenth largest credit union, announced last night it has hired Kenneth Burns, the president of $1.3 billion Technology CU, in nearby San Jose, as its new president and CEO.
Burns will succeed Andrew Hunter as president of the $4.3 billion Patelco on May 4. Hunter, 58, a protégé of Ed Callahan, has headed Patelco the past six years after Callahan retired.
The well-known Callahan, who also chaired the NCUA Board in the 1980's, died last month at 80.
Patelco has run afoul of the state’s poor economy in the past two years, reporting a $40 million loss for 2008 and a $7 million loss for the first quarter of 2009. Burns will be greeted with a tough charge, in fact charges of more than $60 million Patelco will have to report for its share of the corporate credit union bailout and the failure of WesCorp FCU. He will also be faced with the integration of two failed Bay Area credit unions acquired by Patelco last year, Sterlent CU and Cal State 9 CU.
Burns has headed Technology CU since 1995 and before that was president of Bay FCU. Prior to that he was an auditor for O’Rourke and Clark, now known as McGladrey and Pullen.
