PERRY, Ga. – Police captured a man they believe tried to steal an ATM machine from Robins FCU two weeks ago. Keith Brown, 32, is accused of ramming his Chevrolet pickup into the credit union's ATM and then attempting to steal it. The high-impact theft failed, though. The pickup truck was recovered and traced to Brown. Brown was nearly captured last week but he escaped and almost ran down the two offices trying to arrest him.

POMONA, Calif. – Volunteer employees and members of Wescom CU were putting the finishing touches this weekend on this year’s project at the L.A. County Fair–the construction of two houses for low-income county residents. This project, done in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, tops last year’s output when the crew built a single home at the fairgrounds, while thousands of people watched. More than 250 volunteers have worked for the last 18 days to build the two 1,200 square-foot, three-bedroom houses, which will be moved to permanent locations in Pomona after completion. The future owners of the houses, the Guerra’s and Michel Horton, joined volunteers in the work last weekend. Wescom paid for materials for the first house, while Habitat is still raising funds to pay for the second home.

MISSOULA, Mont. – Missoula FCU was asking residents to haul all their old glass objects they plan to recyle into building materials for a new branch. The credit union, which plans to build the branch out of renewable, recycled and locally made products, was hoping to collect as much as 400 tons of glass it plans to pulverize for use in building materials. Some of the glass will be sorted by color and mixed with fly ash, a waste product generated by coal-fired plants, to form the lobby floor inside the 6,000-square-foot building. Glass aggregate will also be used in place of gravel and concrete throughout the building and property, right down to the landscaping. The credit union is hoping its efforts will earn the building a gold- or platinum-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The single-story building is being designed to capture the maximum amount of sunlight to minimize the use of artificial lights, and will use solar panels. It will also use renewable materials, such as sunflower seed board and cotton insulation, and recycled products such as counters and exterior siding made of post-consumer recycled paper.

RALEIGH, N.C. – The North Carolina State Employees CU Foundation, which has emerged as the biggest donor to the state’s educational programs, was named as one of this year’s winner of the Herb Wegner Awards. The SECU Foundation provides more than $7 million in annual scholarships–at least one to every one of the state’s public colleges, and recently began building subsidized housing for the state’s teachers. Other winners are: Robert Hoel, the long-time director of the Filene Research Institute, the credit union think tank, who retired last year; and Harriet May, president and CEO of Government Employees CU, in El Paso, Texas, which has emerged as one of the leading community development credit unions in the country. The awards will be presented during CUNA's Government Affairs Conference in Washington next March.

DENVER – Bellco CU said it donated $21,000 to Denver children's services organization Mount Saint Vincent Home to help support its preschool program which provides therapy for children, ages 3 to 6 years old. The funds were raised during the credit union’s annual golf tournament, which has provided more than $116,000 to the hospital over the past four years.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Beacon Federal Bancorp, a conglomeration of five converted credit unions, plans to raise as much $100 million in an initial public offering, one of the biggest offerings ever for a former credit union. Beacon, chartered in 1953 as Carrier Employees FCU, serving the erstwhile air conditioning giant, was one of the first credit unions to convert to mutual savings bank in July 1999. Since then the ex-credit union has acquired four smaller credit unions upon their conversions to mutual savings banks: Professional Teachers FCU, Caney Fork FCU, Salt City Hospital FCU, and earlier this year, Marcy FCU, creating a $675 million regional savings bank with a diverse branch network in Syracuse, Tennessee, Texas and Massachusetts. Proceeds form the offering will be used to pay down debt and finance potential other acquisitions of credit unions and banks, the company said. The offering, which will go first to depositors, then to the public, is being underwritten by Keefe Bruyette & Woods, which will earn as much as $1 million for its work.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A former branch manager for The Golden 1 CU who admitted to stealing more than $73,000 through fake withdrawals was sentenced last week to 180 days in jail and ordered to pay restitution to the credit union. Cora Perryman, 62, was managing the credit union’s Redding, Calif., branch when she stole the money from six account holders between June 2004 and June 2006. Perryman has already been released from jail because of overcrowding and will serve her time by spending days working in county corrections crews.

PURCHASE, N.Y. – MasterCard, which went public in 2005, is asking credit unions to sell back their shares to the company–one of the hottest stocks of the past decade. The tender offer was scheduled to end last weekend. Since going public in May 2005 at $39 a share, MasterCard shares have soared to more than $165–a quadrupling–before settling Friday at $147.97 amidst the overall market slump. In order the facilitate the buyback, MasterCard has lifted the provision on the shares it issued to its credit union and bank members barring a sale of the IPO shares for three years.

SAN FRANCISCO – The credit union movement is headed for one of its biggest paydays ever–as much as $1 billion worth of stock in Visa Inc.–when the cards giant goes public later this year. “This is big, big money,” said Dallas Bergyl, president of Inova FCU, a $320-million Elkart, Ind., credit union that will receive 19,211 shares in the initial public offering. At an estimated of $50 a share, that amounts to almost $1 million. Other larger credit unions are receiving much larger apportions, based on their transaction volume with Visa. North Carolina’s State Employees CU, for example, will receive 263,000 shares, more than $13 million at the $50-a-share projection. More than 2,000 credit unions that are among the principle 14,000 financial institution members of Visa will receive stock in the new company, which will represent a consolidation of Visa USA and Visa Canada (members of Visa Europe have decided not to participate). Under the terms of the IPO, the members cannot sell their shares for at least three years. NCUA is discussing how to treat this credit union windfall, estimated to be as much as $1 billion, even before a run-up in the stock. When MasterCard went public in 2005 and issued stock to hundreds of credit unions, federal credit unions were allowed to hold the shares, which have almost quadrupled in value since then–one of the hottest stocks in the market since their debut. The IPO for Visa, which is much larger and profitable than MasterCard, is expected to dwarf the MasterCard payout. Like MasterCard, Visa will be controlled by the biggest banks after the IPO, with Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citi, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo, holding almost 30% of the voting shares.

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - In the wake of what some are calling a credit crisis, Affinity FCU is offering its new "Loan Health Check From Affinity"-think of it as a check-up for member's credit health.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Steven Bisker is no Johnny-come-lately to the conversion game.

WASHINGTON - A new venture headed by America Online founder Steve Case and backed by several banking giants unveiled a payments system last week they say will bridge the gap between credit/debit cards and Internet-based transactions.

SAN FRANCISCO - Visa rolled out a new "fob" payment device, no bigger than your thumb, which can be used to replace the ubiquitous credit/debit card. The Visa Micro Tag is designed to attach easily to a key ring, and allows cardholders to pay by simply waving their Visa Micro Tag in front of a contactless payment terminal without the need to physically swipe or insert the device into a point-of-sale terminal.

WILLIAMSPORT, Penn. - Horizon FCU is holding a Pampered Pet contest at each of its branches.

Throughout 2007, the Credit Union Journal is profiling the credit unions of each U.S. state and D.C. Rather than appear in alphabetical order, the states are being featured in the order they became states.

BATON ROUGE, La. - A member of KeyPoint FCU was convicted of a business loan fraud that enabled her to obtain almost $3 million in federally guaranteed loans allotted to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

CLEVELAND - Rita Haynes, CEO of Faith Community United Credit Union, was recently honored with the "Hardest Working" award from the Tom Joyner Morning Show, which airs daily on ABC radio syndicates nationally.

ERIE, Penn. - Erie Federal Credit Union said it has received a $10,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Credit Union Foundation to fund its financial education program.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Forty-eight attendees from seven African countries attended the inaugural African SACCO Regulators' Roundtable here.

When you think of J.D. Power & Associates it's near-certain you also think of automobiles and the customer satisfaction ratings the various manufacturers are always extolling.