VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Single-sponsor CU Tidewater TelephoneEmployees CU “never wanted to be a mega big credit union,” says itsCEO, and that's why it's determined to maintain a personal touchwith its members even though the CU was approved by its stateregulator for a community charter. The $35 million, 6,300-memberTidewater Telephone Employees CU was approved Oct. 28 by theVirginia Bureau of Financial Institutions to expand its field ofmembership to include the communities of Virginia Beach, Norfolk,Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Newport News, and Hampton. It isthe largest community charter granted by the BFI for astate-chartered credit union. The estimated population of the sevencities is approximately 1.1 million, according to the 2002 U.S.Census. President/CEO Sharon Emory said Tidewater TelephoneEmployees' application for the FOM expansion was prompted by itsshrinking membership and the continuing downsizing of its sponsorVerizon. Stressing that the credit union “is financially inexcellent shape,” she explained that, “We didn't want to give upour single sponsor, but with the downsizing the communicationsindustry has been going through and the fact that Verizon hasn'tbeen able to hire new employees, we weren't able to attract newmembers. This was going on constantly for many years. Without manyactive employees in the area for us to draw new members from, wecan't sustain the members we previously had. Some of our membersleft the area, others have passed away.” Verizon is also amulti-state company, and Emory said as a result of the downsizingthe company often uses employees in other states to perform certainfunctions. Emory didn't have estimates on the number of membersTidewater Telephone Employees has lost, but two years ago the CUhad more than 7,000 members. In deciding whether to apply for acommunity charter and which areas to include, Emory said the CUdetermined it was most important not to “abandon” the members ofthe phone company Tidewater Telephone Employees had been serving.In fact, even before it filed its charter conversion applicationthe credit union was already serving the seven cities included inits community charter – the difference was that before TidewaterTelephone Employees could only serve employees and their familiesof communications industries in those cities, and now it can serveanyone who lives or works there. Now that Tidewater TelephoneEmployees has a community charter, Emory said, “We'll take babysteps with it and see what happens.” The CU hasn't decided yetwhether it will change its name. Emory said some board members arein favor of a change, “but others are not so anxious,” she said,adding that “we realize at some point it will be necessary if wewant to adequately serve this market.” Tidewater TelephoneEmployees CU currently has two offices – one each in Virginia Beachand Hampton, Va. Emory said the credit union will probably open acouple of storefront branches and continue to use the 4,700-squarefoot building it owns in Virginia Beach as its headquarters. As forproducts and services, she said the credit union is already veryhigh tech and “there aren't many products we don't offer.” She saidTidewater Telephone Employees does not offer business lending andis not interested in getting involved in it. Emory said the creditunion plans to announce the FOM expansion first to its existingmembers “so they'll know not only that their relatives can join,but also their friends and neighbors.” After that, TidewaterTelephone Employees CU will market to the areas in the vicinity ofits two offices. “Once we've done that, we'll make decisions aboutmarketing in the new communities and neighborhoods we can serve,”said Emory. -

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