PEWAUKEE, Wis. - Tom Knabel, on the eve of his retirement from more than a quarter of century of credit union service, is hard pressed to choose which of the jobs he's had at various credit unions is his favorite. But ask him what credit unions were like back in the `60s and `70s, and Knabel, vice president of the Wisconsin Credit Union League, can easily field that question. Knabel is retiring May 12 after 33 years with the league. Actually, his credit union experience dates back even further, because prior to joining the WCUL he spent four years with A.M. Employees Credit Union and Snap-On Credit Union. Starting in what was the league's Education and Promotion Department, helping credit unions introduce effective advertising, Knabel then became manager of the newly-independent Promotion Department. He has also served as senior manager for technical consulting, operations consulting, marketing and public relations. He was named vice president in 1996. Does he consider any one of those jobs his favorite? "I truly enjoyed all of them, because as you learn more about one particular function and begin to master it, it begins to be kind of boring after a while. So moving on to new responsibilities is interesting and exciting," Knabel answers. "Maybe my present job title is the one I enjoy most because with all the departments I'm working with, there's always something exciting going on." He recalls arriving at the league back in 1967, long before share drafts and many other products appeared on service menus. "It was a smaller organization in terms of the number of employees and the functions we performed," he explains. "We had a larger number of credit unions, but they were a good deal smaller. That meant we had a lot of Mom and Pop shops. "Credit union operations were very uncomplicated. Credit unions offered a plain vanilla passbook savings account and personal loans, both secured and unsecured. Some credit unions even ventured out into the far reaches of space and made a real estate loan here and there. "It was very common for credit unions to charge 12% APR on all personal loans. The amount of interest a bank or savings and loan could pay on a savings account was limited by law to 4%. Usually credit unions, while they were not limited by the law, would pay a half to a full percentage point above that. So you had a 7% gross spread. You would have to work really hard for a credit union to fail under those circumstances." Today, Knabel says, spreads are so thin a credit union's executive leadership has to be sharp to achieve a positive outcome. Back in that simpler financial world 30 years ago, league staff focused primarily on helping credit unions with operational issues - budgeting, filling out forms properly, and basic bookkeeping. As for rules and regulations, "I had one single 2-inch three-ring binder that contained all the statutes and rules and regulations we had to deal with. Now it takes a whole credenza top to hold that," Knabel says. Today the WCUL boasts a much larger staff handling many more diversified functions. Helping credit unions with operational issues may mean clarifying complicated financial analysis needed to get through the regulatory maze. "Six or seven years ago, for example, nobody in the credit union industry had ever heard of asset/liability management. Now it's required by the regulators," Knabel says. "We have more (league) departments than we had then. For example, one department is dedicated entirely to researching laws, rules and regulations, then writing technical releases to help credit unions comply properly. We still have an education department, as we did back in the 1960s, but the number of topics we have to conduct seminars for is much wider than 30 years ago." Are credit unions better off today? "Yes and no," Knabel says "Certainly they are much larger, they have more professional staffs, more professional leadership, their service delivery capabilities have expanded exponentially, and they have grown in the use of technology. "On the other hand, credit unions have acquired a much greater regulatory burden and they have incurred the wrath of the banking industry, which I think is going to be an unending battle and a focus for credit unions over the next decade or so." He looks back on some assignments he's tackled during his own career. One was convincing Wisconsin CUs they should launch a single, statewide advertising program funded through league dues to support television, radio, newspaper and billboard advertising throughout the state. Another venture was establishing a credit union-owned bank holding company, then purchasing a small commercial bank. The idea was to provide an entree into the Federal Reserve System and achieve greater control over share draft processing. Still another challenge arose when savings and loans ran into trouble in other states. Wisconsin had its own share deposit insurance corporation. Legislators and regulators were concerned. The governor of Wisconsin wanted all the state's credit unions federally insured. "Wisconsin has always been a heavily state-chartered state, and we have only four federal charters out of roughly 350 credit unions. So our credit unions had to become familiar with what was required for federal insurance," Knabel says. "At the same time we had to make sure NCUA understood our credit unions' operations. One example comes to mind. At that time NCUA Region IV had little if any exposure to agricultural lending. They seemed prepared to come into Wisconsin and say, `If you're involved in ag lending, you're not getting insurance.' So we had our work cut out for us on that and other issues. But we got the job done, and on schedule." Looking ahead to retirement, Knabel says he'll miss challenges like those and his credit union friends throughout Wisconsin-but, he quickly adds, he won't miss the pace of working life. He's looking forward to turning off his alarm clock and simply resting and spending more time with his wife and Bonnie, their English cocker spaniel. -
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