State Employees Credit Union of North Carolina CEO Jim Blaine is a man on a mission, and it starts with a $135 million gain from selling off SECU's Treasuries portfolio in the third-quarter 2010. This liquidated most of SECU's Treasury holdings, an investment made dating back to a 2007 pull-out of SECU funds that had been in corporate credit unions. Why did Blaine decide to pull SECU's money out of Treasuries?

One answer is plain old-fashioned market timing. Blaine had determined that he would maximize his profits by moving when he did. But, he insists, that's not the whole story. But the whole story is one he wants to share: "Full transparency really works," he said, and he added that many credit union executives are "afraid to challenge [or] question regulatory-NCUA positions."

Blaine is not one of them and, he elaborated, the push by the NCUA and some state regulators for some credit unions to boost their capital ratio to 10% makes no sense, at least not for SECU.