WASHINGTON – This year's recipients of the prestigious National Credit Union Foundation's Herb Wegner Memorial Award were a former undocumented immigrant who became a credit union CEO, a retired president/CEO of the nation's largest CUSO, who served as a credit union board member at the age of 19, and an organization that started a group of young up and coming credit union professionals who love to crash the GAC every year.

At Monday night's Herb Wegner Memorial Awards celebration dinner, attended by more than 900, Maria J. Martinez, Stan Hollen and the Cooperative Trust were honored for their invaluable contributions that made a difference in advancing the credit union movement.

"I grew up in a home where we didn't have a lot of money, but there was a lot of love and compassion," Martinez said after accepting the award for outstanding individual achievement. "When we immigrated to this country, we gathered every single thing that we had, and though we were poor, we were always taught to be compassionate. Being undocumented for almost 13 years – yes border patrol was after us but they couldn't find us."