HOBBS, N.M. — After 18 months of heading two New Mexico credit unions 18 miles apart, CEO Mark Roddenberry is delighted $45 million Lea Community Federal Credit Union and $13 million Estacado Credit Union have officially merged.
The new, $58 million CU now is called Estacado Federal Credit Union.
Roddenberry became chief financial officer at Lea Community FCU in 2010 after being a credit union CEO in California for eight years. He had been there for just six months when Estacado CU, based in nearby Lovington, N.M., asked CEO Howard Ray to leave and hired Roddenberry. He has been CEO of Estacado CU for three years.
In October 2012, Jeff Bruce, CEO of Lea Community FCU, resigned to return to Albuquerque, where his family resides. In November 2012 Roddenberry was asked to be interim CEO for Lea Community, as well.
"So for the last year and a half I have been splitting my time, three days a week in one office, two days in another," he told Credit Union Journal. "Luckily, it is easy to drive from one credit union to the other, but I have been working 10-plus-hour days five days a week."
Roddenberry suggested the two CUs merge when he first arrived at Estacado CU in March 2011, but the idea went nowhere. When he was asked to run both CUs, he requested the two boards consider merger as a condition of his taking on both CEO jobs. The merger vote by the two boards was unanimous about one month after he began heading both CUs, but it took more than a year to work out the details.
Large Area, Small Population
Lea County is large in area but small in population, Roddenberry explained, noting it is as big as Delaware and Rhode Island combined at roughly 3,800 square miles. He described it as a long, narrow county with five cities every 20 miles or so.
"The economy is booming here; we have only 3% unemployment," he said. "That is why we wanted to consolidate now during the boom time. We will save on expenses. We kept all the staff and management, in part because there was only one CEO and one CFO, and the board was constructed half and half."
The merger has gone so smoothly that staff and management at the two CUs are referring to the deal as a marriage, he said. The new institution's name — Estacado Federal Credit Union — is, noted Roddenberry "half the bride's name and half the groom's name."
"We kept the Lea charter for the community charter and the federal tax exemption, but we kept the Estacado name as it represents a larger geographic area, and it had been part of the credit union for 50 years, much longer than the Lea Community name, which only has been used since 2000," he said
Another factor: there is a Lea County Bank nearby, and confusion of the bank and Lea Community FCU was commonplace.
Estacado had higher income, higher capital and a 36% growth rate, Roddenberry said. He said the CUs did not "swallow each other. It was, 'We need you and you need us, and together we are really strong,'" Roddenberry said in a report in Albuquerque Business First.
The CUs will merge computer systems and will expand into small business lending, Roddenberry said. The two CUs still have different core data processing systems, but later this year will do a double conversion, with both CUs ending up on Fiserv Cubics.
"Luckily, I have managed several previous conversions in the past and look forward to this new challenge," he said.
Lea Community FCU was chartered in 1953 as Hobbs Municipal Schools Federal Credit Union. In 1996 it absorbed Conoco FCU and Hobbs Employees FCU. In 2001 it took on the name Lea Community Federal Credit Union and served all residents who live, work, worship or go to school in Lea County.
Estacado Credit Union was founded in 1964 to serve employees and the families of the Lovington and Tatum School Districts. ECU added New Mexico Junior College in 1968, Lea County Electric Cooperative in 1976, City of Lovington and Nor Lea General Hospital in 1980, LEACO Telephone in 1989, Lovington Transportation in 1999 and Lea County employees in 2007. In 2011, ECU's board expanded its select employee groups and added more than 50 new companies in Lovington.
In 2013, Lea Community FCU started a partnership with Estacado CU to share resources for the benefit of both memberships — one of those resources being Roddenberry. The two credit unions officially merged on April 1. It is community-based and available to residents, employees, students and those who worship in Lea County.
