ONTARIO, Calif. -Stan Hollen, the former CEO of the Golden 1Credit Union and Liberty Enterprises said he is excited to take onthe top job at The CO-OP Network. Hollen steps into the office thatformer CEO Bob Rose occupied for 15 years. “The board of directors,assisted by executive search firm Muller and Associates, examinedan array of candidates from throughout the financial servicesindustry, and Stan Hollen topped our list for a variety ofreasons,” says David Maus, chairman of the CO-OP Network Board ofDirectors and CEO of the $640 Public Service Credit Union inDenver, Colorado. “During his remarkable 33-year financial industrycareer, Stan's developed an unmatched knowledge of the credit unionlandscape,” Maus said. “As shown by his successes at Golden 1 andLiberty, he possesses the foresight to develop and implementstrategic long-term plans and is ideally experienced to providestrong leadership for CO-OP Network and the credit union industry.”Maus explained that for two years, Rose and the CO-OP Network boardhave been formulating a smooth CEO transition. He added that havingcredit union experience was a plus for Hollen but was not one ofthe committee's most important search criteria. The most importantsearch criteria, Maus said, were leadership and experience withdeveloping and innovating EFT networks. For his part, Hollenrefused to call anything about CO-OP's future a challenge, butacknowledged the cooperative has a wealth of opportunities thatneed pursuing. Among them the growing cooperation between CO-OPNetwork and the California-based Financial Service CenterCooperatives shared branch network and the potentially hot issuesof what to do about credit unions that convert to banks beingallowed to remain in CO-OP Network. On FSCC, Hollen noted thatCO-OP had a long history of cooperation with the California sharedbranching effort and that he had been involved in its founding. Healso served on the search committee for the current FSCC CEO, SarahCanepa Bang. But Hollen refrained from predicting anything morespecific between the CO-OP, which owns the Service CenterCorporation shared branch network, and FSCC. CO-OP and FSCC signedan agreement to cooperate more on shared concerns earlier thisyear. He also declined to comment on credit unions remaining CO-OPmembers after they become banks, other than to note that undercurrent bylaws credit unions which are members of CO-OP Network andwhich become banks can remain members, though he acknowledged thatthe rising interest in the issue almost guaranteed that the topicremained on the agenda for some time. Hollen's entire professionalcareer has been spent in the credit union arena, first serving on acredit union board at age 19, the network reported. From 1973 to1984, Hollen was vice president at Construction Equipment FederalCredit Union in Peoria, Ill., where he created one of the earlyshared ATM networks with local banks and thrifts. When he becameThe Golden 1 CEO in 1984, the credit union had $295 million inassets; upon his departure in 2002, the organization boasted anasset base of nearly $4 billion – and 13 executives from hismanagement team had become credit union CEOs. Most recently atLiberty, which was purchased by Harland earlier this year, Hollenled a company-wide diversification of its product lines to be moreattuned with technology. When Rose became CO-OP Network CEO in1990, the company was the 49th largest EFT network in the country.Today, following twelve consecutive years of record annualtransaction growth and nine cash patronage distributions formember-shareholders in the last eight years, CO-OP Network is theNo. 1 credit union network and largest financial institution ownednetwork in the country. -

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