WASHINGTON — While it's clear that former CUNA leader HerbWegner would almost certainly appreciate the awards named for him,one of his former employees is not entirely sure he would approveof them.

“I think Herb would have a little bit of an attitude of askingwhat all this was about since, from his point of view, he wasalways only just doing his job although very, very well,” saidRobert Schumacher, CEO of the $48 million Snohomish County PUDCredit Union and a frequent master of ceremonies at the annual HerbWegner awards presentation.

Schumacher explained that Wegner had been his first boss at CUNAin 1977 and that he has provided a tremendous example to the awardsnow bearing his name and have come to recognize high credit unionstandards of both idealism and practicality.

Wegner served as the managing director, later president, of CUNAfrom 1971 to 1978. Under his leadership, CUNA and credit unionsmoved forward into many innovations and products that later creditunion staff and members have come to take for granted. For example,credit unions took on the challenge of share draft accounts underWegner's leadership, along with credit cards, ATM networks, acorporate credit union network, mortgage lending, individualretirement accounts, and the CUNA service group, among others.

Schumacher explained that Wegner had been a formidable leader,gifted at both having a vision for what credit unions could be andthe leadership qualities to organize and pull people together toachieve that.

No one can remember exactly how the Wegner awards came to benamed or how they were founded, but Schumacher and others long tiedto the awards said they believed they have always been a functionof the National Credit Union Foundation and have always had themission of helping bring to light the unsung heroes of creditunions mission around the country and around the world.

Schumacher said he has served as master of ceremonies for sevenor eight of a total of 20 annual awards programs, and will assumethis role once again 2008. He counts himself as either lucky orblessed that the Wegner has never had any catastrophes during thetimes he has served as master of ceremonies. For example, so far atleast, no awardees have been prevented from attending the dinner byWashington's weather, which tends to be dicey during the time ofyear when CUNA hosts the Governmental Affairs Conference, andproblems have been restricted to the inconvenient and not thedisastrous.

“Most of the sorts of technical difficulties we have seen havebeen on the audio-visual side,” Schumacher said.

As master of ceremonies, Schumacher described his role ashelping to guide the program along its two-and-a-half hour script.He noted he also has to keep his own reactions to the awardsin-check since, as master of ceremonies, he is supposed to remaincool and aloof.

This proved extremely difficult during several differentprograms he has led. Last year's award to Carol Schillios, forexample, proved difficult for Schumacher because he had known,worked with, and supported Schillios for years.

Schillios is a long-time credit union organizer, consultant, andadvocate who has used her experience working with cooperatives tofound a development foundation which she has used in turn to foundthe Fabric of Life Foundation, a economic and social developmenteffort in West Africa, which has helped change the lives of womenof Mali, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and Vietnam.

“I know I wasn't supposed to, but watching the video about thepresentation really choked me up,” Schumacher, who sits on theboard of Schillios' foundation, said.

The Wegners don't carry any financial prize and Schumacheracknowledged that they could be misunderstood as little more than asort of in-house feel-good party for the credit union industry.According to Schumacher and Kris Ackley, director of donorrelations for the National Credit Union Foundation and one of thecoordinators of the awards, what saves them from this is a solidcommitment to finding and telling the stories of seeminglyrun-of-the-mill credit unions and credit union professionals who,without fanfare or fuss, do and accomplish extraordinarythings.

“One of the things which comes through even from the applicationprocess is how much we rely on credit unions and credit unionprofessionals to help us find candidates and make these awarddecisions,” Ackley explained. “We count on people who know about usand what we do and what the awards represent to nominate the peoplethey know about. Those people are often so completely absorbed inwhat they are trying to do and are so completely authentic in theirefforts that they don't really recognize that anyone might find itremarkable that here is one person doing these things.”

Schumacher told a funny story about a similar phenomenon withSchillios who even up to the eve of last year's awards had stillnot understood the impact the awards will have on their efforts.Finally, over the phone, Schumacher asked Schillios if she had runher name recently through the popular Internet search engineGoogle. Schillios, who was at a computer at the time, did soimmediately and Schumacher chuckled as he recalled the shock heheard in her voice over the phone line as links to page after pageabout her and her work appeared on the screen.

“Oh, my God,” Schillios said. “Oh my God.”

One of the axioms about credit unions is their inabilitysometimes to tell their own stories and to relate to the broaderworld what exactly it is that they are doing and what they areabout. The Herb Wegner Awards, Ackley said, are one more way forcredit unions to be able to do that and, as such, will likelycontinue to be an important part of the credit union industry forthe next 20 years.

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