Dennis Pierce is officially retiring from a long and successful career June 30 as president/CEO of the $2 billion CommunityAmerica Credit Union in Lenexa, Kan., and as chair of CUNA's board of directors.

But his impact on the entire credit union movement could last for many years, because Pierce was the impetus behind a CUNA task force, which is reviewing proposals that could change the trade association's structure and governance, affecting every league as well as hundreds of credit unions.

Tom Dorety, president/CEO of the $6.3 billion Suncoast Credit Union in Tampa, Fla, recalled Pierce had to delay organizing the task force when former CUNA President/CEO Bill Cheney unexpectedly stepped down in June 2014 to take over as president/CEO of the $11 Billion SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union in Santa Ana, Calif.

Pierce and CUNA's executive committee wanted the new president/CEO, Jim Nussle, on board before getting the System Structure and Governance Task Force working in September 2014.

“I think Dennis led CUNA through a very critical juncture with the changing of the CEOs and with the task force to actually look at the structure and governance model from an honest, proactive, open standpoint,” Dorety, who chairs the task force, said. “That's not easy to do when there is no emergency facing you smacking you up side of the head. You have to be proactive. You have to sit back and analyze things and that's what he has asked us to do.”

Pierce instructed the task force to take a close look at the system's structure and governance options that are available to credit unions in order to meet the evolving needs of the movement that is rapidly changing because of credit union and league consolidations and other marketplace forces.

In a recent interview with CU Times, Pierce said the task force and its process is playing out as he hoped it would.

“The task force is doing a great job of looking at the issues and coming up with some proposed solutions,” Pierce said. “It's a complex situation and there are lots of different options. We'll see how it plays out. I think it is progressing nicely and I think it will lead to substantive changes.”

That process includes discussions and debates that are happening via emails, phone conversations and meetings, but only within the closed circuits of league leaders, CEOs and CUNA officials.

Some league presidents have either declined comment or said they are not ready to share their opinions until the task force finalizes its recommendations to the CUNA board, which may come next month when the board is scheduled to meet with Dorety at America's Credit Union Conference and World Credit Union Conference July 12 to 15 in Denver.

In about two weeks, the 12-member task force is scheduled to meet in a two-day session, but Dorety declined to say where the group will gather.

“We'll try to come up with a consensus on where we want to go and how we will want to present it to the CUNA board,” Dorety said. “I'm not positive that we'll have recommendations, but we are certainly moving toward that, but there is no guarantee we'll have [recommendations] then.”

The CUNA board, roundtable CEOs and league presidents received a report from the task force during a meeting in Denver that detailed survey results on what credit unions think about the state of the CUNA/League system as well as several preliminary ideas on how to improve it.

Findings of the report included that satisfaction with the CUNA/League system was not high, especially among larger credit unions, and that the majority of larger credit unions said they would prefer the choice to be a member of their state leagues or CUNA, according to a slide presentation obtained by CU Times.

In addition to the proposed preliminary idea of changing CUNA's name to America's Credit Unions, the report's other preliminary ideas include establishing league/national interdependence and retaining league/national connection with some credit union choice of league.

However, CUNA did not recommend changing the dual membership requirement.

Other preliminary ideas included allocating national advocacy dues spread among credit unions, leagues and the system advocacy fund, introducing some choice on how dues are allocated, creating cooperative agreements between CUNA and leagues for accountability, funneling all dues used to fund advocacy and developing fee-based services not subsidized by advocacy dues.

Read more: Michigan League CEO comments on the proposed changes …

While league leaders are staying mum until the task force makes its final recommendations, Dave Adams, president/CEO of the Michigan Credit Union League & Affiliates, provided comments about some of the proposed CUNA changes.

“While I certainly agree we need more legislative and regulatory victories in Washington, I do not believe these results will come as a result of structure and dues changes,” Adams wrote in the Priority Report, the league's monthly publication.

Dorety said he respectfully disagrees with Adams.

“We can't push advocacy simply by saying we need to push advocacy,” Dorety said. “We need to have a stronger integrated system to become effective and to put more pressure on legislators. We need to be ready when we do go on the offensive. We need to have the credit union system solidly behind us and that includes on the local, state and national levels.”

Adams also wrote that the Michigan league doesn't need help from CUNA with its very low dues structure, nor with how dues are collected or distributed.

“We also believe that dues dollars are important for more than just advocacy, although that is our highest priority,” he said.

Dorety argued, however, that the task force hasn't discussed or recommended anything that would have a significant impact on the league's dues structure.

“One thing the task force has said is that we don't want dues subsidizing other services,” he said. “We want the dues for advocacy to specifically go to advocacy because that is what we believe credit unions want.”

As far as Pierce is concerned, these debates now occurring on CUNA's proposed changes will serve to benefit the movement over the long run.

“I think it is very healthy for us to have those kinds of conversations, engage in a debate and come up with the best possible structure to represent credit unions,” Pierce said.

Whatever that “best possible structure” turns out to be, it is uncertain whether it will ever lure back recent credit union disaffiliations from the state trades and CUNA. The national trade group claims an affiliation rate of nearly 90%.

Pierce said he doesn't see recent disaffiliations as an emerging trend.

“Some of it has to do with perceived state representation,” Pierce observed. “Sometimes it's national representation, or sometimes it's about personality issues. It's disappointing when [disaffiliation is caused by] some failure in terms of service or ability to provide real value. I think that is what the task force is hopefully going to help us identify.”

Pierce pointed out that if credit unions continue to work together, the industry will have a strong future.

“We are pretty much better together,” he said. “We are not a significant piece of the market when you look at our aggregate involvement at the moment. So if we don't work together I think we run the risk of being splintered and taken advantage of.”

Because it's harder for credit unions to generate returns to grow capital, Pierce foresees consolidations continuing. But he's not concerned that as credit unions grow larger they will lose their cooperative culture, as long as the surviving credit unions remain true to demonstrating the cooperative principles that differentiate the industry.

“When credit unions take care of their members, a lot of other things will be taken care of. That may be a little trite, but I think sometimes how we approach life is how we achieve success,” Pierce said.

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Pierce Speaks on CUNA Task Force

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