ATLANTA - Back in 1956, some people in Atlanta had an idea. Why not charter a credit union to provide benefits to employees of companies too small to form a viable credit union of their own? At the time it was an innovative notion. In fact, Associated Credit Union was the first and only credit union in the United States ever chartered solely to serve select employee groups. Today, the SEG concept has become the focus of growth in credit union membership. Dan Maslia joined ACU as president in 1958. He held that post until 1997, when ACU merged with The Federal Employees Credit Union in Atlanta. Today he's vice president in charge of business development for Associated & Federal Employees Credit Union. Maslia thinks back to the mid-1950s when ACU started with 15 companies employing a total of less than 900 people. "The biggest challenge was getting new groups to join and understand the credit union concept," he recalls. "There was no single sponsor to help it get started. It was also a challenge to be able to run it on a part-time basis, then grow." Grow it did, to more than 850 member groups, 35,000 members and $67 million in assets. "Growth was a matter of going from company to company. The more groups you got, the more you had to do," Maslia says. Just keeping track of when you last visited a specific employer and to whom you spoke required considerable effort. So ACU installed Telemagic, a computer software program that tracks contacts with all member groups. Run a printout and you might discover, for example, you haven't visited a specific plant or office for several months. Oh, yes, and don't forget to ask Jane, the human resources director about her new grandchild. "It really helps you stay in touch," Maslia says. Those carefully-tracked, in-person contacts are supplemented by a monthly newsletter edited specifically for company officials. The publication includes answers to questions employees may be asking about the credit union. In return for this effort, ACU enjoyed some benefits other credit unions adding SEGs to their field-of-membership have discovered. "You're not concentrating on one particular industry, so you're not affected by layoffs or downturns in a single industry. We have some employee groups of 100 or less, and some companies that have 2,000 to 3,000 employees," Maslia says. "It also allows you to keep growing. That's why a lot of credit unions are getting into SEGs. They have exhausted their potential field-of-membership." Maslia has conducted seminars on SEGs, and he expects to be accepting more and more speaking engagements. A couple points he stresses: First, he said, "You have to make a commitment to giving it what it takes." Getting an individual SEG into the credit union is easy. Getting maximum participation from that SEG is the real task. Next, you have to prepare and plan. For example, if you are a high-tech credit union, are workers at a local factory going to want the same services your current members do? What does that mean to your credit union's short-term and long-term strategy? About five years ago Maslia started thinking about the future of ACU. "Members were asking for more branches, more ATMs, and more sophisticated products. I felt we could not give the members what they wanted without a merger partner. The time to merge was when we were strong," he says. "I had looked at several credit unions. But I only spoke to The Federal Employees Credit Union. They had what we needed - branches and resources. We had the potential for new members. It was a textbook merger." FECU had $380 million in assets and 80,000 members. All the ACU employees kept their jobs and seniority. Maslia says he made it clear he didn't want the CEO job at the new credit union. Instead, he is doing what "I really, really enjoy" - enlisting new SEGs and maintaining contacts with existing ones. In the two and a half years since the merger, more than 100 new SEGs have joined AFECU. The credit union ended 1999 with assets of $525 million and 132,000 members. Both ACU and FECU were state-chartered, so the uncertainties surrounding H.R.1151 didn't affect the credit union directly. However, Maslia was delighted to see the bill pass. "I always felt 1151 was good," he says. "It allowed all credit unions to serve SEGs." In June this year the Georgia Credit Union Affiliates awarded Maslia a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his service to the credit union movement. -
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