WASHINTON: About 200 people gathered at the CUNA Councils breakfast meeting Tuesday to hear the 2016 Excellence Award winners from the lending, marketing and business development, HR and organizational development, CFO, technology and operations sales & service councils.

“Every day is a great lending day at the $563 million USF Federal Credit Union because we do love making loans,” Gary Wahlgren, vice president of lending for the Tampa, Fla.-based cooperative, said. Around that concept, the lending department developed a theme song to build excitement among staff members.

Of course, USF FCU did a lot of hard work to improve its lending program for which it received the excellence in lending award.

In 2014, the credit union realized it was facing some challenges.

After reviewing the credit union's people, processes, products, pricing and culture, USF FCU focused on creating asset growth that was driven by loan growth, improving loan to share ratio, reducing operating expenses, standardizing underwriting procedures, providing loan officer training and improving lending delivery channels.

In just one year, the credit union increased its loan to share ratio from 70% to 84% and over the last two years average loan growth has increased by 17%.

The $ 1 billion CFCU Community Credit Union in Ithaca, N.Y. received the CUNA Councils excellence award in operations, sales and services.

In 2015, the credit union realized its intranet was outdated and wasn't engaging its employees.

“At CFCU, we believe that you can't do change to people, (but) you can do change with people, “Jim Struble, vice president of sales and service, said. “So collaboration was the name of the game.”

The credit union met with all employees, surveyed them, held focus groups and met with all of the departments.

“We asked what's missing? What's important to them? How do they prefer to be contacted? What makes them get of bed in the morning,” Struble explained. “We asked these questions of every single department in the credit union.”

The employee engagement enable the credit union to design an easy to navigate, searchable and personalized intranet site for each employee. The intranet site also featured relevant content for employees. What's more, every department site posted its mission, its passion and its big hairy audacious goal, Struble said.

The $756 million Pacific Marine Credit Union in Oceanside, Calif., received the HR & organizational development excellence award for enhancing and improving its service culture.

To keep employees engaged and excited about the new service training, Pacific Marine CU developed a theme based on the Amazing Race television program to implement employee team activities that facilitated the development of skills to enhance member loyalty.

The results of the training included increasing the credit union's net promoter score by 25.3% and improving employee opinion surveys in the categories of problem solving, consistency in procedures and performance standards, according to the credit union's video presentation.

The $2.6 billion Baxter Credit Union in Vernon Hills, Ill., received the excellence award in technology.

“To give you an idea of what it was like early on, we had requests (for IT projects) coming in from every direction, (and we had) over 300 backlog requests spanning over a three year period,” Baxter CU Chief Technology Officer Scott Zulpo said. “No prioritization process took place. Basically, whoever screamed the loudest moved to the front of the line.”

Under the new model, Baxter CU prioritized projects based on which ones offered the greatest business value. The credit union also implemented industry best practices and processes, invested in new tools, and revamped it entire delivery framework based on financial management, demand management, accountability and resource management.

Every new IT project must be approved by a vice president and have a business case, which is then reviewed by the executive management team. After the projects are implemented they are monitored for performance and the benefits produced for the credit union.

The $1.7 billion Local Government Federal Credit Union in Raleigh, N.C. received the excellence award for marketing and business development. The credit union serves local government employees, including first responders such as firefighters and rescue personnel.

Ten years ago, the credit union spotted a market opportunity to serve the commercial lending needs of volunteer fire department and rescue organizations throughout the state.

The credit union started with just one staff member in the commercial loan department and it has grown to employ seven staff members that manages a commercial loan portfolio of $113 million.

Local Government FCU focused on building strong relationships of volunteer fire and rescue departments to understand their financial needs and to establish trust and confidence. The credit union also developed a customized debit card program for fire and rescue departments that shares a portion of the fees to support firefighter associations.

Over the last 10 years, the credit union's debit card program has generated $2 million, Donna Gonyeau, public relations manager for LGFCU.

The excellence in finance award winner was the $249 million People Driven Credit Union in Southfield, Mich.

The credit union received the award for its post-merger financial reporting and process improvements and efficiencies.

By assessing employee skill sets, establishing a robust cross-training program, developing deeper bench strength in technology, and being laser-focused on uncovering efficiencies, People Driven CU's finance and accounting team was able to become more cohesive, nimble, and proactive. As a result of the plan that was implemented PDCU's values — proactive, knowledgeable, consistent, accountable, and consultative – were embraced and continue to be demonstrated by the team.

For more information about the excellence award winners, visit cuna.councils.org.

Instant Insights /

CUNA Councils&rsquo; Excellence Award Winners Share Best Practices: GAC

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