SAN DIEGO – Bruce Cormode's battle with health problems has forced him to officially resign as president of credit union data processor Symitar, a Jack Henry subsidiary. "Based on the health issues, I'm not able to come back. This is for the betterment of the company," said the 53 year-old Cormode. He did not want to discuss the nature of his health problems. Cormode has been with Symitar for 17 years. When he started he was only the company's 20th employee and Symitar had just 30 clients. Today Symitar is recognized for having one of the premier systems and has about a 15% share in the market. "I'll miss the day-to-day involvement I had. I'm sorry things had to move in this direction. It's an incredible industry, one that's hard to leave. I have no doubt I'll find my way back," said Cormode. He has a home in Southern California and in Arizona. "I'm just trying to find a place where I can face this challenge," he said. Looking back over his career at Symitar, Cormode believes Symitar's success is tied to giving individual CUs the ability to change the Symitar Episys system to meet their needs. "One of the things that holds systems back is the inability to keep up with individual desires. What really allowed that not to happen to us was our PowerOn allowed people to take things a step further," said Cormode. PowerOn is technically a report generator, but Cormode said it "truly is a data manipulator that short of giving everybody source code, allows them to do what they need to do, whether it's create reports or add services." Symitar, more than any other system, has spurred the creation of individual CUSOs that focus solely on building out on the system and helping other CUs enhance the system. Two of the most tech-savvy CUs in the nation, Pennsylvania State Employees CU and Wescom CU, have such CUSOs. "It's all shareable code. Once a CUSO writes something, they can offer it to other credit unions. It speaks to the robustness of the system." The change Cormode notices most comparing the processing industry of yesteryear to today is speed. "The speed of bringing things to market is so fast. I can remember the days I could talk to a client that had four or five things on the table they wanted to achieve. Today their lists are endless and in all areas. A large percentage of what they want to do falls on the data processor," said Cormode. Cormode believes Jack Henry's financial backing has allowed the company to continue growing. He questions whether Symitar could have done it on its own. "I continue to believe that was the best thing that happened to Symitar. It provided the leadership and the capital to grow. It's done so much for our company." Former Symitar CEO Manny Prupes (one of the company's three founders) for years talked about keeping Symitar independent. But Cormode said Prupes started seeing changes in the industry and knew it needed more capital. Cormode said Prupes was very involved in selecting Jack Henry before his untimely death. Symitar was sold to Jack Henry in 2000 just a few months after Prupes' death. Prupes was 53. Jack Henry has named Kathy Hooker-Burress as its new president. Hooker-Burress has been Symitar's manager of national sales for more than five years. Hooker-Burress will continue to lead the sales force. Jack Henry CEO Jack Prim said it's a little unusual for the CEO to have this role but it reflects the importance of sales in the credit union space and the confidence Jack Henry has in Hooker-Burress on the operational side. "We are confident that Kathy is the right person at this time for this position. She has a proven understanding of the credit union industry, a solid working knowledge of Symitar and our core and complementary solutions, and a real-world understanding of credit unions' technology and operational requirements," said Prim. Cormode pointed out that Hooker-Burress has operational experience from her EDS days and has been part of his management team and was always very active on operational issue that came up. "They made a great choice moving Kathy into that spot. She understands what credit unions are trying to do," said Cormode. [email protected]
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to CUTimes.com, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited CUTimes.com content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking credit union news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Shared Accounts podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the commercial real estate and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, GlobeSt.com and ThinkAdvisor.com
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.