VALLEY FORGE, Pa. – For those who haven't been to Hawaii or knowthe culture, the word “ohana” may not mean much, but to those atUSERS it's everything for doing business in Hawaii. Ohana meansfamily in Hawaiian and USERS has learned it has to treat itsHawaiian CU clients as family to keep the relationship strong.USERS has one of the strongest presences among any credit unionprocessor in Hawaii. It recently added Windward Community FCU inKailua as a client, making it the second Hawaiian CU to join USERSwithin a month and the 25th overall client there. With only 100 CUsin the state, this gives USERS a quarter of the market. Whenmainland firms want to serve Hawaiians it's no secret that theyneed some kind of tangible presence on the islands. USERS has had adata center on Oahu since the 1970s. “I think trust and loyalty isvery important for doing business in Hawaii. Over the years USERShas ebbed and flowed the staff for the data center,” said LarryTankeloff, SVP of Operations for USERS, but USERS has consistentlyshown that it is committed to serving the CUs there said Tankeloff,and that's now paying off. The fortunate thing for USERS is therehas been churn of late with other processors, so it is positionedto pick up new business. A few vendors have dropped out of therunning, and one is involved in some changes that may open somedoors for USERS. Tankeloff said USERS tries to keep Hawaiian CUs inthe mainland loop by inviting them to all its mainland conference,but also realized that it needs to bring conferences to them. Forthe last five or six years it has been holding mini clientconferences twice a year in Hawaii. Ward Yamamoto, an AccountManager for USERS who is located at its Hawaii data center, saidUSERS is also prepared to serve all sizes of CUs. Hawaii has a lotof smaller CUs, and turning them away would not go over well withother Hawaiian CUs. USERS has clients ranging from as small as $1.7million all the way up to $760 million. “A lot of it is word ofmouth in Hawaii,” said Ward. The data center has 12 staffers and isbased in Honolulu. USERS has clients on the islands of Maui, theBig Island, and Molokai. That concept of ohana can be seen withUSERS disaster recovery. Tankelooff said one of its clients, HawaiiFCU, was nice enough to act as a backup disaster recovery site,which is tested every year with multiple CUs. Tankeloff said theCUs in Hawaii also appreciate USERS keeping equipment fresh. It hasa three-year buying cylce, where in year one it buys CPUs, in yeartwo it buys CPUs, and in year three it invests in telecom. “Werotate it for disaster recovery purposes. It justifies that we'realways on new equipment,” said Tankeloff. [email protected]