A short time ago, I was in High School, when my friends asked me what I wanted to do when I got out, I said be a basketball coach or a surgeon. Last week when two of my co-workers asked me what I want to do, I told them I want to be a leader in the Credit Union Movement and whatever that position entails.
Most of you know me thanks to my sabbatical with the Filene Research Institute and the Drive for Implementaiton blog that I am hosting for them throughout my sabbatical. Unfortunately, my days on the Filene implementation team are numbered as my sabbatical ends at the end of June, and I will be refocusing my change efforts on my Credit Union. Tinker FCU of Oklahoma City.
I have been a part of the Credit Union Movement for a long time, since I was a teenager. I didn’t know it, like 99% of our members, I didn’t know what the “Movement” was. Then at 18 I became a PT teller. Over the next 3 years, I learned at every oppurtunity and eventually was promoted to the level of Supervisor. At 21, I was the youngest supervisor ever at TFCU. It was after that, where I realized that I was addicted to this movement. And my dreams past of being a surgeon or a basketball coach, wained as I saw and experienced what the Credit Union Movement was all about.
While a supervisor I spent a year on a Gen Y task force, you likely understand why I would be a good candidate. I was promoted to Manager in early 2007 at age 23. After finishing my Liberal Studies degree at the University of Oklahoma, I set my sight on a school that could help me with my passion for the CU Movement. I attended my first of three summer sessions at the TCUL’s SW CUNA Management School in Fort Worth. I was the youngest there by about 7 years, yet my classmates elected the Okie as the President for the Class of 2009. At this point in my career, after spending two weeks with these 45 CU people with roles from Loan Officer to CEO with CU experience longer then my life experience, being elected their leader is the biggest honor in my professional life.
Then in December, I got a call from our EVP/ Chief Administration Officer about an oppurtunity. He said can you come over and meet with me today. Well yea. I was a little apprehensive, it as a Friday afternoon meeting, and he does oversee our HR division, but even-though the oppurtunity was with another organization, I was still an employee of TFCU. I have documented most of my sabbatical on the Drive for Implementation blog.
Although this blog will overlap a bit with my ownership of the Implementation Blog, my focus will remain with Filene through June. But as I find things in the Movement, that I feel the need to write about, I will post them here if they don’t relate to my Filene sabbatical. So keep tuned to both, as I share whats in the mind of a 24 year old with aspirations to help the Credit Union world evolve into the Financial Institutions of Choice.
8 years ago, I was 16, when my friends asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I said be a basketball coach or a surgeon. Last week when two of my co-workers asked me what I want to do, I told them I want to be a leader in the Credit Union Movement and whatever that position entails.
