The new head of the California/Nevada Credit Union League, Diana Dykstra, joined the industry chorus Tuesday against CUs making hasty decisions on corporate services, stressing initial system recommendations may be at hand in a matter of weeks.

On the job only since Oct. 18 "and still unpacking," Dykstra, the president/CEO of the league replacing CUNA head Bill Cheney, said preliminary fact finding in pursuit of a system solution has already been completed by a 12-member league task force including visits or interviews with five existing corporates.

She declined to identify any of the corporates but said proposals for how California/Nevada CUs would meet the corporate "crisis," as some league leaders have described it, would be made clear perhaps by the end of November.

The final directions CUs may head in, she said, should become more evident following CUNA's Corporate Summit gathering of vendors, corporate CEOs and CUNA/league brass Nov. 13 in Chicago. California/Nevada League task force members will also be attending, she said.

In meeting with processing vendors and the corporates, West Coast CUs, she said, "do not want to have history repeat itself," referring to a time when CUs were left in the lurch on check handling and funding operations following the Bank of America/Security Pacific merger and the dissolution of a key vendor. "That was a mad dash where credit unions had 60 days to find a replacement and let me tell you none of us want that again," said Dykstra, the former president/CEO of San Francisco Fire CU.

As expected, her first three weeks on the job have been hectic, she said, as she moves into a home in Claremont near league headquarters in Ontario. But amidst the unpacking, she also met President Obama for the first time during a Los Angeles campaign stop on the University of Southern California campus Oct. 22.

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