MONTEREY, Calif. - Diversification has been the name of the gamefor Liberty Enterprises since Stan Hollen came on board as CEOabout a year and a half ago, and that trend continues withLiberty's latest move to acquire MyDAS Marketing. MyDAS Marketing,based in Boulder City, Nevada, is a consulting company thatspecializes in marketing and training. It has a large followingamong credit unions out West and in Texas. It serves about 150credit unions and major CU vendors such as Fiserv and Harland. Italso has some banking clients. Liberty President/CEO Stan Hollen isvery familiar with the company from his days as CEO of The Golden 1CU. "We used their secret shopping services a lot at Golden 1. I'veknown Sue Mitchell (MyDAS' president) for a number of years and wewere thrilled when they moved their strategic alliance from Harlandto us a year ago. They bring us products that are really in highdemand from credit unions. Training, compliance, service qualityare all very important for credit unions right now," said Hollen.Hollen also noted that MyDAS' success with large credit unions wasattractive since Liberty is trying to better penetrate thatsegment. MyDAS will operate as an independent subsidiary ofLiberty. Hollen said Liberty wants to preserve MyDAS' brandrecognition, so its name will not change. "We will do a lot ofcoordinated selling of their products and our products. They're sowell known in the West, we want to take them all over the country,"he said. MyDAS was founded in 1985 by Sue Mitchell and her husband.She said what sets MyDAS apart in the industry is that it's notjust a consulting firm; it also works with credit unions to followthrough on their advice and set up new programs and products. "Wehave marketing, we have research, and we have education. If youthink of it as a circle of services, consulting starts that circle.We have to understand the needs, then we go out and help design themessage of brand with communication tools internally andexternally," said Mitchell. A student of financial services trends,having been in the industry for 25 years, Mitchell says creditunions need do to be focused on where the money is going. "One ofthe big initiatives over the last few years has been the transferof wealth. We go out and help credit unions design programs toreach all generations. We do generational marketing. We mysteryshop the branches to see how they treat the young people," saidMitchell. She said credit unions need do understand how importantit is to attract young people now, so they'll be there when thewealth transfers. Another vital area Mitchell sees is helpingcredit unions deal with shrinking margins by operating more costeffectively from a human resource standpoint and technologystandpoint. Mitchell has a technology background, starting hercareer at IBM working to help financials with custom applicationsand mainframes. Her tech background is very apparent at MyDAS. Thecompany has had a lot of success with its online staff trainingprograms, Credit Union University. Hollen said this was one of theproducts he's most excited about since training for large CUs,particularly those with many branches, isn't easy. "Training can bea challenge when you have multiple locations and employees indifferent geographic areas. They have a private label onlineuniversity that is robust and has college accredited modules. Whena new area comes out like business lending, they can develop a newmodule that would be difficult for a credit union do to on theirown. Quite frankly this product has very little competition. CUNAand CUES have programs, but we're confident that MyDAS is thebest," said Hollen. Mitchell said the decision to sell wasemotional, but was necessary to fulfill the expansion aspect of itsstrategic plan. With the additional resources of Liberty,particularly its sales force, the MyDAS products can get to morecredit unions across the country. "They came and talked to us abouthelping us go nationwide. Strategically it's something we've beenplanning for. Liberty will help us keep the dream alive to expandour reach. We will still continue to have our leaguerelationships," said Mitchell. This is the third major deal forLiberty under Hollen. Last year it acquired CUNA Network Servicesand merged it into its Cavion unit. Hollen also piloted a deal thatsaw Liberty not buy a company, but sell one of its subsidiaries inLiberty FiTECH. It sold that unit to Open Solutions Inc. Hollensaid he didn't think core processing would be a focus of thecompany, so selling off the unit early was the best move. "Therewill be other deals coming from us that will be good strategicfits. We have a major announcement coming in the near future for acomprehensive identity theft solution," said Hollen. Hollen saidall these moves help diversify Liberty in preparation for thedecline of the check, but he doesn't think that will happen as soonas everyone thinks. "They are decreasing, but the volumes are so,so high that even if they shrink there is still a lot of checkactivity. If consumers are anything like my wife, the check will bearound for a long time. Many people still feel safe with thecheck," he said. He also noted that the studies that have predictedthe decline of the check have so far been way off in terms of howfast it will happen. A year and a half into the Liberty job, Hollensaid it's great to still be able to work with credit union peoplehe has known for years, but there are clear differences betweenleading Liberty vs. a credit union. "There are similarities betweenHR, marketing and technology, but there are distinct differences.It's not that credit unions aren't in a competitive market, but weoperate with heavy competition and we're in the for-profit world,"he said. He joked that he's also enjoying now only having"quarterly board meetings instead of monthly ones."[email protected]