CUNA ACUC Kicks Off in Seattle
June 27, 2016 10:17 AM
Day 1 of America's Credit Union Conference competed with the sights and sounds of the host city.
SEATTLE While most of the country sweltered in triple-digit temperatures Sunday, attendees of the Credit Union National Association's annual America's Credit Union Conference enjoyed a picture postcard 75-degree day in the Emerald City.
Credit union advocates from all over the country had the opportunity to take in some of the sites, including legendary Pike Place Market, before taking in the chock-full agenda at CUNA's annual meeting.
Despite the beauty of Puget Sound and Mount Rainier, CUNA ACUC attendees filed in late Sunday afternoon to mark the start of the conference.
Troy Stang, president and CEO of the Northwest CU Association, which represents credit unions in Oregon and Washington, welcomed visitors to the Pacific Northwest. "The credit unions in Oregon and Washington are deeply embedded in their communities," he said. "We believe the role of credit unions is augmented when they have more market share. In Washington, 60% of auto loans are booked through credit unions, 40% in Oregon."
Denny Heck, who represents Washington state's 10th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, said the region has a "strong history of credit union leadership and innovation." Heck singled out Jim Nussle, CUNA's president and CEO, and Ryan Donovan, chief advocacy officer, as doing a "spectacular" job of representing credit union interests in Washington, D.C. Heck said he also enjoys working with Rick Metsger, new chairman of the NCUA board.
Heck discussed the need for providing banking services to marijuana businesses. He noted Washington voters "significantly approved" adult use of recreational marijuana two years ago, but implementation has had challenges. "Regardless of what you think of marijuana, and how you think it should be regulated, this is real, right now," Heck said. "These businesses are forced to operate as all-cash businesses, which is a public safety issue." Just last weekend, a Marine veteran and father, acting as a security guard at a Colorado dispensary, was shot and killed in an armed robbery, Heck lamented. "This was foreseeable, and it will continue to happen until there is regulatory relief that allows marijuana businesses into the banking system." The good news, Heck said, is the majority of the House and Senate support that position. The bad news is, the leadership in the House is not allowing votes on the issue. "You can't regulate it if these businesses are not in the banking system, and it is not safe the way they have to operate."
According to Heck, marijuana banking presents an opportunity for credit unions to expand their business lending. "Because of the business lending cap on credit unions, more and more lawmakers are concerned about where money is going to come from to support small businesses. The Dodd-Frank Act directs the CFPB to collect small business lending data, similar to HMDA. We need to get out in front of this, my friends. I don't want to see the CFPB put out a thick set of regulations. I want us to impact it on the front-end of deliberations. Please get involved."
Steve Post, retired president and CEO of Vermont State Employees CU, Montpelier, Vt., received this year's Credit Union Hero award.
"There are thousands of heroes in the credit union movement. I dedicate this award to all of you," Post said to a standing ovation from the crowd.
Alex Sheen is the founder of "because I said I would," an international social movement and nonprofit dedicated to the betterment of humanity through promises made and kept.
Alex Sheen told attendees his father was average looking, and just an ordinary man. "He was not a war hero, he ran a pharmacy. He was average in every way, except for one thing he always kept his word to his sons." One day Sheen's father was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. He tried radiation and chemotherapy because he was a go-down-swinging kind of guy, even though the odds against him were terrible. He died in September 2012. When Alex was preparing his father's eulogy, he kept coming back to his father's greatest quality: keeping his promises.
Alex created business cards that say only, "because I said I would" on the front and nothing on the back. From humble beginnings, he now has sent 4.47 million promise cards to people in 153 countries. "Sometimes the promise you make means nothing to you, but it means everything to someone else," he said. "The cards have been used in ways I could never have foreseen." One man was diagnosed with terminal cancer when his daughter was 8 years old. The man was in the habit of writing a note on the napkin he placed in his daughter's lunch. He calculated his daughter had 826 days of school left, so he wrote out 826 napkin notes, so no matter what happened to him his daughter would have a note in her lunch every day until she graduated high school.
"Do what you can with what you have. Today. Right now. Be all in. The world is made better when we believe in the power of a single individual. The power of one. Somewhere along the way we lost the importance of accountability."
Sometimes it might be difficult to keep up a promise made, Sheen acknowledged. He said when you feel like giving up, ask yourself, "Why did I make that promise?" "When you have a strong why, you can be strong."
