COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Staking out new ground on aiding the underserved and financial literacy, the Colorado and Wyoming Credit Union Associations have recruited Robert Hoel, formerly of the Filene Research Institute, to its foundation board and also signed on to the REAL Solutions program.
"We have scored a major coup," declared John Dill, the president/CEO of the trade group, in adding Hoel, a CU finance guru, and Jane Prancan, a former U.S. West Foundation communications executive, to the Credit Union Foundation board.
Separately, Dill told attendees at CUAC's annual convention here recently that Colorado and Wyoming have joined more than two dozen other state leagues on the REAL Solutions venture of the National Credit Union Foundation promoting payday and savings products to the underserved.
"These are breakthrough developments for our foundation and we're all very excited" about bringing special experience to the foundation in non-profit fundraising and product development, said Dill. Also being rolled out this month to CUs across the U.S. is the web-based "FoolProof" financial education package.
Hoel, now a Filene fellow who ran the Madison 'think tank' for 15 years before stepping down in 2007, is a former chairman of the Department of Marketing at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where he now resides.
During CUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference last March, Hoel was honored with the Herb Wegner Lifetime Achievement Award.
Most recently Hoel also joined the board of Public Service CU of Denver to help oversee its merger of the defunct Norlarco CU also of Fort Collins, which was placed into conservatorship in 2007.
Prancan, a consultant with the Denver firm of Community Ventures Plus and also the chairman of Bellco CU, was the founding executive director/vice president of the U.S. West Foundation and its predecessor Mountain Fell Foundation.
Prancan was responsible for a $26 million social responsibility portfolio operating in 14 Western and Midwestern states. She also led an $11 million fund-raising operation for the non-profit American Indian College Fund.
--jrubenscut@aol.com
