Dennis Pierce is officially retiring from a long and successfulcareer June 30 as president/CEO of the $2 billion CommunityAmericaCredit Union in Lenexa, Kan., and as chair of CUNA's board ofdirectors.

But his impact on the entire credit union movement could lastfor many years, because Pierce was the impetus behind a CUNA taskforce, which is reviewing proposals that could change the tradeassociation's structure and governance, affecting every league aswell as hundreds of credit unions.

Tom Dorety, president/CEO of the $6.3 billion Suncoast CreditUnion in Tampa, Fla, recalled Pierce had to delay organizing thetask force when former CUNA President/CEO Bill Cheney unexpectedlystepped down in June 2014 to take over as president/CEO of the $11Billion SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union in Santa Ana, Calif.

Pierce and CUNA's executive committee wanted the newpresident/CEO, Jim Nussle, on board before getting the SystemStructure and Governance Task Force working in September 2014.

“I think Dennis led CUNA through a very critical juncture withthe changing of the CEOs and with the task force to actually lookat the structure and governance model from an honest, proactive,open standpoint,” Dorety, who chairs the task force, said. “That'snot easy to do when there is no emergency facing you smacking youup side of the head. You have to be proactive. You have to sit backand analyze things and that's what he has asked us to do.”

Pierce instructed the task force to take a close look at thesystem's structure and governance options that are available tocredit unions in order to meet the evolving needs of the movementthat is rapidly changing because of credit union and leagueconsolidations and other marketplace forces.

In a recent interview with CU Times, Pierce said thetask force and its process is playing out as he hoped it would.

“The task force is doing a great job of looking at the issuesand coming up with some proposed solutions,” Pierce said. “It's acomplex situation and there are lots of different options. We'llsee how it plays out. I think it is progressing nicely and I thinkit will lead to substantive changes.”

That process includes discussions and debates that are happeningvia emails, phone conversations and meetings, but only within theclosed circuits of league leaders, CEOs and CUNA officials.

Some league presidents have either declined comment or said theyare not ready to share their opinions until the task forcefinalizes its recommendations to the CUNA board, which may comenext month when the board is scheduled to meet with Dorety atAmerica's Credit Union Conference and World Credit Union ConferenceJuly 12 to 15 in Denver.

In about two weeks, the 12-member task force is scheduled tomeet in a two-day session, but Dorety declined to say where thegroup will gather.

“We'll try to come up with a consensus on where we want to goand how we will want to present it to the CUNA board,” Dorety said.“I'm not positive that we'll have recommendations, but we arecertainly moving toward that, but there is no guarantee we'll have[recommendations] then.”

The CUNA board, roundtable CEOs and league presidents received areport from the task force during a meeting in Denver that detailedsurvey results on what credit unions think about the state of theCUNA/League system as well as several preliminary ideas on how toimprove it.

Findings of the report included that satisfaction with theCUNA/League system was not high, especially among larger creditunions, and that the majority of larger credit unions said they would prefer the choiceto be a member of their state leagues or CUNA, according to aslide presentation obtained by CU Times.

In addition to the proposed preliminary idea of changing CUNA'sname to America's Credit Unions, the report's other preliminaryideas include establishing league/national interdependence andretaining league/national connection with some credit union choice of league.

However, CUNA did not recommend changing the dual membershiprequirement.

Other preliminary ideas included allocating national advocacydues spread among credit unions, leagues and the system advocacyfund, introducing some choice on how dues are allocated, creatingcooperative agreements between CUNA and leagues for accountability,funneling all dues used to fund advocacy and developing fee-basedservices not subsidized by advocacy dues.

Read more: Michigan League CEO comments on theproposed changes …

While league leaders are staying mum until the task force makesits final recommendations, Dave Adams, president/CEO of theMichigan Credit Union League & Affiliates, provided commentsabout some of the proposed CUNA changes.

“While I certainly agree we need more legislative and regulatoryvictories in Washington, I do not believe these results will comeas a result of structure and dues changes,” Adams wrote in thePriority Report, the league's monthly publication.

Dorety said he respectfully disagrees with Adams.

“We can't push advocacy simply by saying we need to pushadvocacy,” Dorety said. “We need to have a stronger integratedsystem to become effective and to put more pressure on legislators.We need to be ready when we do go on the offensive. We need to havethe credit union system solidly behind us and that includes on thelocal, state and national levels.”

Adams also wrote that the Michigan league doesn't need help fromCUNA with its very low dues structure, nor with how dues arecollected or distributed.

“We also believe that dues dollars are important for more thanjust advocacy, although that is our highest priority,” he said.

Dorety argued, however, that the task force hasn't discussed orrecommended anything that would have a significant impact on theleague's dues structure.

“One thing the task force has said is that we don't want duessubsidizing other services,” he said. “We want the dues foradvocacy to specifically go to advocacy because that is what webelieve credit unions want.”

As far as Pierce is concerned, these debates now occurring onCUNA's proposed changes will serve to benefit the movement over thelong run.

“I think it is very healthy for us to have those kinds ofconversations, engage in a debate and come up with the bestpossible structure to represent credit unions,” Pierce said.

Whatever that “best possible structure” turns out to be, it isuncertain whether it will ever lure back recent credit union disaffiliations from the state trades andCUNA. The national trade group claims an affiliation rate ofnearly 90%.

Pierce said he doesn't see recent disaffiliations as an emergingtrend.

“Some of it has to do with perceived state representation,”Pierce observed. “Sometimes it's national representation, orsometimes it's about personality issues. It's disappointing when[disaffiliation is caused by] some failure in terms of service orability to provide real value. I think that is what the task forceis hopefully going to help us identify.”

Pierce pointed out that if credit unions continue to worktogether, the industry will have a strong future.

“We are pretty much better together,” he said. “We are not asignificant piece of the market when you look at our aggregateinvolvement at the moment. So if we don't work together I think werun the risk of being splintered and taken advantage of.”

Because it's harder for credit unions to generate returns togrow capital, Pierce foresees consolidations continuing. But he'snot concerned that as credit unions grow larger they will losetheir cooperative culture, as long as the surviving credit unionsremain true to demonstrating the cooperative principles thatdifferentiate the industry.

“When credit unions take care of their members, a lot of otherthings will be taken care of. That may be a little trite, but Ithink sometimes how we approach life is how we achieve success,”Pierce said.