WASHINGTON – This year's Herb Wegner Award Winners will includetwo pioneers among credit union efforts to seek out and serve themost underserved and often forgotten people in their communities.Caryl Stewart, CEO of the $37 million Opportunities Credit Union(until recently the Vermont Development Credit Union),headquartered in Burlington, Vermont, will accept the award forOutstanding Organization on behalf of Opportunities, and CliffRosenthal, Executive Director of the National Federation ofCommunity Development Credit Unions will accept the award forIndividual Achievement. The National Credit Union Foundationestablished the Herb Wegner Awards in 1988 to honor the late CUNACEO, Herb Wegner, and to recognize his spirit of “innovative,creative, risk-taking” leadership, the Foundation has said. “Eachyear it's an honor to recognize the best of the global credit unionmovement, and this year is no exception,” said Chuck Purvis, NCUFboard chairman and SVP at Coastal Federal Credit Union in NorthCarolina. “The contributions these award recipients have made toour movement are extraordinary, the dedication awe-inspiring.” Inaddition to Opportunities and Rosenthal, the Wegner awards thisyear will recognize Dr. James Likens, president and dean of WesternCUNA Management School (WCMS), who will receive the LifetimeAchievement award in recognition of his many achievementsthroughout his lengthy career, including running the managementschool, speaking tirelessly on behalf of credit unions and havinghad an impact on the careers of thousands of credit union leaders,the Foundation said. For Stewart, the award to Opportunitiesrepresents the culmination of three different strands in her life,the caring for people, the preference for the private sector as aninstrument to help meet people's needs, and a commitment to seekexcellence in performance and attitude. “It's funny, but I believethat everything I have done in my life has led me to this place andto this work,” Stewart said. “If I look at what I do today I cansee where each of the different things I have done in my life helpme do what I do now.” Stewart began her career knowing nothingabout credit unions or even financial institutions. “I was a socialworker,” she said, chuckling a little. It was a career she entered,and enjoyed, because of her desire to help people face problems intheir lives and accomplish goals. But it was also a career thatleft her frustrated with the bureaucracy she encountered working inthe public sector. So in 1973 Stewart left social work and enteredthe private sector, joining a partner in developing a businessplan, raising capital and founding Bennington Potters North in1974. The successful retail store still occupies its originalspace, though Stewart left it in the late 1980s as she became moreintrigued with community development and the possibility of using acredit union to accomplish community development ends. “Through mywork in the private sector I had become aware of my ability tounderstand financial issues and to work with people on finances,”Stewart said. “I had also gotten involved in working with thisecumenical group in the area that had begun dabbling in somecommunity development issues.” That group, the BurlingtonEcumenical Action Ministry, became the founding sponsor, in 1989,of the Vermont Development Credit Union. The founding of the creditunion appeared to be on track as a relatively easily attainablegoal, Stewart recounts, until the savings and loan crisis hit andsuddenly NCUA and the share insurance fund took a very dim view ofanything like community development credit unions. “I think therewas a three-year period where there was no new communitydevelopment credit union chartered at all, anywhere in the country”Stewart said. “That we opened at all is really a triumph ofpersistence. Whenever we would overcome whatever hurdle they hadfor us to overcome they had another one waiting.” But Stewart andthe organizers persisted and opened the credit union in 1989, withwhat she now considers a dangerously small amount of operatingcapital, $20,000, but with a reservoir of good will from Burlingtonpolitical leaders. With the help of then Burlington mayor and nowindependent Congressman Bernie Sanders, VDCU was able to not onlykeep its doors open but to attract institutional investment fromBurlington area banks who were looking for a way to invest inBurlington's community development effort. Under Stewart'sleadership, Opportunities has attained a reputation for being acredit union that “never says no,” a stance that Stewart saysinitially earns her applause at speaking engagements until whatthat really means sinks in with people. “We have three types ofloan applicants at Opportunities,” Stewart says, “qualified, nearterm qualified and long term qualified.” Being in the near term orlong term qualified group usually means that the applicant has tocommit to doing the hard work necessary to make themselvesqualified and not everyone is ready to make that commitment.” Manyof the members do however and Stewart reported that one hergreatest satisfactions in running Opportunities came in a studyconducted by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change that documented,in hard terms, the impact the credit union has had on thecommunities it has served. “We always knew we were having an effectfrom what our members told us and showed us,” Stewart said. “Thestudy merely documented that more completely.” A Movement DeepenedRosenthal said that his Wegner award represented recognition of thechanges community development credit unions have helped encourageamong credit unions overall. “For many of my 25 years at theFederation, CDCUs have been described as the conscience of thecredit union movement,” Rosenthal said. “This has been problematicsince I believe everyone has their own consciences but it's truethat CDCUs have made working with low-income people specificallythe hallmark of their work.” Rosenthal said that the biggestindication of the impact CDCUs have had on the broader credit unionmovement may be the fact that, 10 years from now, it appears verylikely that many other credit unions will do the sorts of work longassociated with CDCUs. “This really is the CDCUs' legacy,”Rosenthal said. “This is why we have set up programs to encouragemainstream credit unions to partner with CDCUs, that's why we havesought to provide benchmarks for good practices in working withlow-income people. Gradually, working with low-income people willbe something all credit unions specifically work into theirbusiness plans and it will become less something that only CDCUsdo,” he concluded. [email protected]