SAN FRANCISCO – CUNA's new chairman, Juri Valdov of Virginia,certainly has paid his dues in leadership jobs in the tradeorganization having served as a CUNA director for eight years, andnow he finally gets to fulfill a long-time passion – find ways to:improve financial education, particularly in the public schools.“Financial education leads to financial independence” which meanspicking the right choices in life, said Valdov, an ex-Marine whoserved in Viet Nam. Valdov, who is president/CEO of the $1.4billion Northwest FCU of Herndon, Va. has for the last year beenvice chairman of CUNA but he also has held numerous other postsdating back to CUNA's Renewal process, a broad re-organization ofCUNA governance which Valdov helped engineer. In his debut speechto the Future Forum, Valdov said as chairman he plans to work onimproving external communications with the public to convey astronger message about CUs serving the public good. As an example,Valdov said “we have all these stories we share” internally aboutgenerous contributions of time and money to Katrina victims but notmany in the public sector know about them. Credit union executives,he said, are often reluctant about detailing their own achievementsor that of their CUs. Over the last year Valdov has served as vicechairman of Cavion Plus, chairman of CU Realty of Va., Md. and D.C.and has headed up the Children's Miracle Network annual CherryBlossom 10K Mile Run in Washington. He is a graduate of Penn StateUniversity's Smeal College of Business and Administration. Valdovformally took office during a board election Sept. 26. Elected vicechairman and succeeding Valdov is Allen Kemp McMorris,president/CEO of Oakland County CU in Waterford, Mich. who moved upfrom treasurer. Continuing as secretary is Donald Larsen,president/CEO of Community CU of Tacoma, Wash. Tom Dorety,president Suncoast Schools FCU, Tampa, formerly member-at-large,became treasurer and succeeding Dorety in the member-at-large slotis Richard Ghysels, president of First Financial FCU in WestCovina, Calif. [email protected]