Some of the people served by the credit union are charter members, having been with CRC since its founding in 1963. Others have continued their relationship with the credit union even though they have moved out of the area, our of the state or out of the country.

"Our members really are still looking for and want the kind of service we give them: that's knowing them by name and exhibiting that we care about them, the `people helping people' credit union philosophy," Blair explains.

"I think large credit unions can't really provide what our members are looking for," she adds. "Our members like the small town community feeling they get here. They tell their co-workers and family members to come over to CRC. I've never heard of any of our members leaving to go to another larger credit union."

Blair, who joined the credit union in 1988 and became president and chief executive officer two years later, said CRC is happy and content to remain a small credit union. Its field of membership is limited to employees (and their family members) working at the nearby California Rehabilitation Center prison and at Patton State Hospital. Plans are under way to add employees from two other area prisons, maintaining the credit union's focus on serving only law enforcement personnel.

Blair quickly points out that the credit union has still managed to grow – it has assets today of approximately $7.5 million – without resorting to adding dozens of unrelated select employee groups. It has accomplished that growth by adding new services for its members.

When the credit union was first chartered in 1963, it had $750 in assets. But what made it truly unique was its location, crammed into two tiny rooms on the prison grounds of what was formerly a luxury hotel built in 1928 at the then staggering cost of $4 million.

The hotel in the late 1920s and early `30s played host to the rich and famous of Hollywood, who flocked to the Lake Norconian Club in Riverside County. Among the hotel's amenities was a double Olympic-sized swimming pool, hot mineral baths, 18-hole golf course, a lake and boathouse, lounge, ballroom and dining room with imported marble floor.

In its heyday, entertainers such as Bob Hope could be found exercising in the gym or being pampered by the hotel staff.

All that changed when the Depression hit and the hotel fell on hard times. It was purchased in 1941 by the U.S. government and converted into a Naval Hospital. It was shuttered eight years later, then reopened by the Navy in 1951 as a general care hospital. It remained open until 1957, when it was again closed and sat in disrepair. In 1962, the state of California took over the site as a narcotic rehabilitation center. Today, the complex run by the state Department of Corrections, houses about 4,000 male and 1,000 female drug offenders in the medium-security facility.

One year after the prison opened, CRC was chartered to serve the prison's employees. It offered only savings, loans and certificates at the prison. If an employee needed cash, he would call down to the credit union, which would then cut a check and have it waiting for him when he came to the office or at the gate when he left the prison. The employee would then have to cash the check at the Bank of America, where the credit union maintained an account.

Blair, who was working at Wells Fargo Bank managing the escrow department, answered a blind ad for back office member services staffer at a financial institution in Norco. At the time, she was tired of the long commute to her job in Orange County and wanted to spend more time with her family. She says she wasn't looking for a management position, just a job that was closer to home.

"I didn't even realize there was a credit union in the whole town," she admits.

What she found at CRC was a far cry from her experience at Wells Fargo.

"I found it so different than corporate Wells Fargo," she recalls. "I'm working in this prison. It was a lovely place but it was like going totally backwards as far as the skills that I had. I went there (CRC) and there were no computers, everything was hand-written on ledgers."

Blair confesses that after three weeks of working in the two rooms which totaled 400-square-foot that she was ready to admit that she might have made a mistake. But the then-CEO convinced her to stay, telling her that the reason she got the job was so that she could succeed her when she retired.

Two years later, Blair found herself heading the credit union.

"I decided to stay and never regretted it," she says. "I totally and thoroughly enjoy my work to the point where at night a lot of times I have to tell myself, `Go home.'"

Under Blair's leadership, the credit union has embraced technology and, after moving off the prison grounds in 1966, began expanding its services to members. Among the new services: checking accounts, ATM cards with the Mastercard logo, direct deposit of payroll and a web site where members can check their account history or print out loan applications. Members can also e-mail the credit union to transfer funds from one account to another. At the end of 2001, CRC was planning to introduce a debit card.

"I think we're listening to the members and having them tell us what they want," says Blair, who admits she considers herself "conservative" when it comes to adding new services.

"When we started with checking accounts, the idea was that we wanted to become the members' primary financial institution," she says. "Once you start with checking, one thing leads to another as far as services go."

The credit union has also grown in membership after some corrections workers, who were concerned about privacy issues when the credit union was located on-site, opted to become members once CRC relocated. Inmates were used to clean the credit union office at the prison, prompting their concern over privacy matters.

Blair says there was never any safety concerns about credit union staff who worked in the administration building at the prison. She recalls there were frequent lock downs when no one was allowed to enter or leave the grounds. That situation once caused a hubbub with one credit union employee who was about to go home for the day to her baby only to find herself in lock down. "She was adamant about leaving," Blair remembers. "She said she wasn't a state employee (and didn't have to stay). Eventually she went to the warden's office and said they weren't going to keep her there. She finally was able to leave."

Blair says CRC's approach to adding new services to keep members happy has been to offer the items that the members truly want, not just to add things to try to make the credit union look more impressive.

"We don't do things just because it's adding to your brochure if we do this, this and this," she says. "If it's not a good thing and not something that's going to make us better we're not going to do it."

She says her vision, shared by her board and her six employees, is to "continue doing what we're doing but to do it better and better."

"We all have pretty much the same vision, which is to continue doing what we're doing and doing it in a courteous, friendly, professional manner and exhibiting that we really care for you." That approach, she notes, is what keeps members coming back, even when they move away.

"It's because of our people," she says. "They really like the people who work here. They feel our people genuinely care for them and take care of their accounts professionally, accurately and helpfully.

"I just think we're going to continue to grow if we continue to do and carry out business the way we have and improve on that," Blair says. -

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