WEST JORDAN, Utah – What started out as a "defense strategy" to counter the fallout from a seasoned loan officer leaving Mountain America Credit Union has turned into an annual event with record attendance.

The $1.7 billion credit union held its latest open house in April as a way to reacquaint its select employee groups, members who own businesses, and vendors with the business services division. Nearly 125 persons turned out for the meet and greet where they networked, enjoyed refreshments and got to meet staff from the growing department.

Mike Turner, senior vice president of commercial lending at Mountain America, said he came up with the idea of an open house a few years ago for a commercial lending open house and it was so successful that they decided to do if for the entire business services area. The idea originally began as a defensive strategy, he added. "We had experienced some turnover in our loan officer position and we wanted to make sure our brokers, appraisers, title companies and vendors knew more than one person in our department," Turner said. "We want to solidify our relationships within the commercial real estate and business arenas and this is a perfect networking opportunity to do that." The last two gatherings focused primarily on Mountain America's bustling commercial lending program. This time, it was important to introduce everyone to not only the loan side, but place equal emphasis on business deposits, Turner said. "They know us more for commercial and SBA loans, but not business deposits and cash management," Turner said. "Part of this was also our way of saying thank you for the relationships we have with them." Indeed, as one of the founders of Member Business Lending, LLC, the three-year old, jointly-owned CUSO, Mountain America is one of the industry's formidable players. The credit union has $144 million in commercial real estate loans in its portfolio and an additional $53 million that are participated with other credit unions. It also has about $35 million in SBA loans on the books. For several years, it has remained the top credit union SBA lender in the country. Its business deposit side is as equally strong with $136 million there. The spring open house was also an opportunity to garner new business relationships, Turner said. While it's still early to measure how many new contacts were established, Turner said there was one member who had a commercial real estate loan, who ended up pursuing a business account and cash management services. That same member was also introduced to the credit union's six-month-old Women's Financial Services Network, launched in November 2005, toward their financial needs including small business services. According to Turner, the majority of Utah's businesses are owned by women. Getting the word out for the open house was targeted and potential attendees were hand-picked, said Brent Lawrence, chief marketing officer/senior vice president of marketing at Mountain America. About 350 invitations were sent out followed up with phone calls and e-mails. Branch staff also selected four to five of their "best" SEGs to attend, he added. "This was a cost effective way to get the word out," Lawrence said. "We're finding a lot of members are interested if they know [the credit union] offers these types of services." Turner agreed. "Every year I talk to people who say `I didn't know you offered this,' so it's an educational process," Turner said. Both Lawrence and Turner said, like many credit unions, they are filling a need that some banks refuse to entertain. "My background comes from a large, national bank," Turner said. "That bank didn't want to do the smaller loans because they didn't think there was any money to be made there. We fill a niche that banks don't." -