NCUA’s weekend seizure of California’s Telesis Community Credit Union put a focus Monday on the problems of one credit union’s venture into small business lending, participation loans and the downfall of one of its chief advocates, Grace Mayo, its president/CEO.
News Update, April 2, 2012, Telesis Management Taken Over By Premier America
Until the state’s housing bust and recession fallout in 2007-09, Mayo had long been a leading advocate among lawmakers at the state and national level pushing more MBL authority.
She had served on several political action committees of the California/Nevada Credit Union League and was first elected to the CUNA board in 2004 and served until February 2008.
Biographies show Mayo joined Telesis in 1986 at a time the credit union had $600 million in assets and 41,000 members with 10 branches. It now has about $318 million in assets and four branches and has lost money in recent years, including more than $11 million in 2010, a year in which Mayo was paid more than $2.1 million, according to IRS 990 forms.
Chatsworth-based Telesis currently has four branches, having closed its last branch in Van Nuys a year ago.
The bio noted that Mayo had served as chair of Business Partners, described as a multi-owner member business lending CUSO with 15 equity owners nationwide managing assets of $1.5 billion.
Mayo also served as chair of CU Vehicles LLC, the holding company for Autoland Inc., described as the “largest vehicle purchasing CUSO serving hundreds of credit unions nationally.”
Said the bio, “Grace received her bachelor of science degree in business management from University of the Pacific, graduate degree in financial management from UCLA, and a certification in commercial lending from the University of Louisiana.”
“She also attended the executive development program at Stanford University School of Business. Grace is a national speaker on various credit union topics for state leagues, credit unions, and all major national trade association groups,” said the bio.
