LEBANON, Ore.-Peter Walker believes that being a good branch manager requires making one simple choice each morning.
Walker oversees OSU FCU's Lebanon, Ore., office, and when he rolls out of bed on work days he makes certain he approaches his job with a great deal of passion. "Passion is something that you choose to have, because you don't always wake up feeling passionate about what you do," Walker observed. "That is a fact of life. But you deliberately make a choice, and that helps you to take on the attitudes and behaviors that support the values credit unions espouse, and the momentum and energy follow."
That energy helps Walker motivate his team of four to work hard at helping members meet their financial needs and make sure they provide the best and timely service. Besides benefiting members, the right attitude helps Walker and the rest of the team care about what they do, he said.
"Otherwise you are just working a nine-to-five job, punching a clock and going through the motions. That is not very fulfilling and you are not doing anyone any good."
Doing well for the members is particularly important in this small, former logging town that fell on hard times a long while ago but is starting to get back on its feet. "In the early '80s after several saw mills shut down, the governor declared this an economic disaster zone," said Walker. "It has been really tough. But in the last few years things have ignited the community-a Lowe's regional distribution center came to town and brought 800 jobs."
A new medical school recently opened, as well, bringing more work. Both additions to the town have brought many ancillary businesses. "So the unemployment rate is going down, even during the recession," Walker said. "In the '80s unemployment here had exceeded 20%, now it is 12%."
Cash Flow Dilemmas
Besides providing financial guidance and products that beat the banks' offerings, the $700-million credit union introduced a payday loan product a while back, pointed out Walker, fixed at 18%. "That has gotten a lot of our members away from the check cashers."
Walker, who has been branch manager for the last six years, says he and his staff work diligently to help members save money and increase their monthly cash flow. "We have members in tears at our desks because we saved them $200 to $400 a month, and those kinds of things continue to motivate our branch to do even more. We saved a woman $1,200 a month by refinancing her loans. That is what is motivating about working at the branch level and what keeps us all passionate about what we do. We see the results of our work in the faces of our members. And this happens every day."
But Walker handed down one piece of advice he thinks many branch managers and their teams should pay attention to: "It can be dangerous for us to take for granted the depth of financial knowledge we have and forget how little the average consumer understands about their own finances and the financial world. We have to remember when talking with members not to assume anything and to probe for needs-many of which are unspoken."
Walker likes what he does, and admits that 10 years ago he never thought he would be working in a credit union. He had his own Web marketing business that eventually sputtered after the dot-com bubble burst. "I went looking for something with more stability and I saw all the money heading out of the stock market and going to credit unions. That seemed like a solid area to head into."
Waller joined the Corvallis, Ore.-based OSU FCU in 2002 as a financial services consultant and quickly moved to a lead teller and operations supervisor role before becoming assistant manager. He will soon move on to become regional branch services manager.
Difference Between Customers & Members
"I really like what I do," Walker said. "That helps me have passion for working at the credit union, no matter what I do. I care about the people who walk through our doors, and I can talk for days about the difference between serving members and customers. As employees of the credit union, we are stewards of our members' money. They have chosen to trust us, and we need to choose every morning to have the passion to truly care about our members' needs. That's not hard to do."
