LIBERTY LAKE, Wash.–CU*NorthWest, a 100% credit union-owned CUSO, has announced board election results. Incumbents Chuck Papenfus, CEO of Inland Valley FCU in Fontana, Calif., and JoAn Sanders, CEO of Cheney FCU in Cheney, Wash., were elected to serve three-year terms. Newcomer Kevin Posey, CEO of Thinkwise CU in San Bernardino, Calif., was elected to complete the remaining term of an open seat ending September 30, 2018.
The election was contested and drew 90% voting participation from the owners. “The participation of our owners is critical to the success of our cooperative and I could not be more pleased to have a contested election and such an outstanding voter turnout,” said Greg Smith, CEO of CU*NorthWest.
Meanwhile, Frederiksted FCU in the U.S. Virgin Islands has selected the comprehensive, forward-looking CU*BASE® core platform and managed services provided by the CU*South CUSO.
Frederiksted FCU is one of only three credit unions serving the 84-square-mile island of St. Croix, and one of five CUs remaining active in the US Virgin Islands.
“We found that we’ll be enabled with the tools necessary to offer more products to our members by going the CU*South way,” said Patrice Canton, the CEO of Frederiksted FCU. “CU*South can take our credit union to the next level and help us to grow our membership, and we’re excited and look forward to this move towards technology for our staff and our members.”
“St. Croix is a very cooperative-friendly environment,” notes Derrick Smith, COO of CU*South. “Of the 50,000 people on the island, almost 9,000 are credit union members. You share similar experiences and similar challenges – that’s why it’s so important for Frederiksted FCU to continue to expand their membership base and their services to even more members. When times get tough, who can do a better job of supporting their neighbors than their local financial cooperative?”
In addition to the cost savings gained by improved operational efficiency, Frederiksted FCU will also be able to leverage the shared experts of the CU*South CUSO to assist with their back office work. “Our CUSO@Work Managed Services community creates a shared resource environment for performing the tasks that are common to all credit unions – bookkeeping, compliance, collections, Call Center – even marketing and media services,” adds Mr. Smith. “We want to make it easy for the CU to focus their passion on member-facing activities. It might take 30 minutes a day to do the daily back office work in CU*BASE – but why take that 30 minutes away from serving a member? We make it easy to share that work within our CUSO family.”