Johnson moved to the California Central Federal Credit Union in 1976. He transformed the credit union with $71 million in assets into the Western Corporate Federal Credit Union or WesCorp with $32 billion in assets by the time he retired from the San Dimas, CA-based institution in 2002.

Along the way, he gained a national charter for WesCorp, ACH membership for credit unions, and took the first corporate CEO seat on U.S. Central board of directors.

WesCorp, caught up in the corporate credit union meltdown, was placed into NCUA conservatorship in 2009. The corporate credit union was officially dissolved in 2012.

Despite its unfortunate demise, Johnson believed that the corporate system was a major milestone for the credit union movement. For the first time, the corporates allowed credit unions to stand on their own financial footing, he explained in a June 2015 interview with the CU Times.

"You will note my bias here, but credit unions created a miracle when they built the corporate system," Johnson said. "In the years before, virtually every credit union had a bank or savings and loan account where they invested, borrowed, left their liquidity and did all their financial transactions. In the course of 20 years, that trend reversed and all the income previously earned by banks was retained by the credit unions."

Throughout his career and in retirement, he received numerous awards and honors. 

In 1999, the California Filene Foundation, established to promote credit union education, was renamed in his honor at the Richard Myles Johnson Foundation.

"Mr. J's leadership has been a guiding force for the RMJ Foundation, and for me both professionally and personally," RMJ Foundation Executive Director Tena Lozano, said. "He was an active, involved board member all the way to the end. His legacy, though, will live on in our work."

He received the California League's highest honor, the Leo H. Shapiro Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002. Johnson also received the 1993 Dick Ayres Memorial Award and in 2001, he received the Herb Wegner Lifetime Achievement Award. What's more, Johnson was the first credit union professional  to receive the National Cooperative Bank's Cooperative Statesman Award. 

Before his storied credit union career, Johnson served in the military for more than three decades. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1941 and ended his military career as a colonel in 1972. Along the way, he amassed a vast number of ranks, honors, and awards, including the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. On Jan. 20, he was honored for his exemplary 30-year military career by the Anaheim (California) Ducks NHL hockey team.

Details about services are pending, according to the California and Nevada Credit Union leagues.