Immediately after Louisiana Corporate Credit Union announced its intention to explore a merger with Corporate America Credit Union, CU Times Correspondent Robert McGarvey got Louisiana Corporate's CEO David Savoie on the phone for a candid conversation about his role in the merged corporate, which will be based in Alabama under the leadership of Corporate America's CEO Thomas Bonds, if the merger, in fact, occurs. Savoie also discussed the future of corporates in general. Excerpts from that conversation:

To be honest, I don't know what my role will be. When we got serious in our talks about a merger, I wanted to put the interests of our members first. Not my interests. Too often it seems as though executives put their interests first in a merger, doesn't it? We reversed that. I believe I will have some role, staying in the Metairie office, but there is time to work out those details.

We first started talking about a merger in 2006. We both serve many small- and medium-sized credit unions. Our two corporates have much in common. Our letter of intent [to merge] runs through June 30. I would expect we will have this wrapped up early in the second quarter.