The postmortem on last month's two failed merger attempts thatwere victims of member opposition hits on three ingredients: poorcommunications, a rushed timetable and lack of enough advanceexplanation to constituents and the public.

That was the assessment this week among merger consultants andthe principal parties themselves as to what went wrong with therejected mergers in Montana and Louisiana, the first such formalpublic defeats in years involving a member vote at large ormid-sized CUs.

“It seems pretty clear that the positive message simply did notget through and somebody in management or on the boardsmiscalculated potential opposition,” surmised David Bartoo, head of Oregon-based Merger Solutions Group,which in serving a CU client has at times encountered a scenario inwhich concerns were not addressed in advance.