By Lisa Hochgraf

Friends from my personal network doubted me, jokingly, when I said I had a work trip to Hawaii. And I confess I have a pretty nice view of the ocean from the patio on Kauai where I'm working on this post.

By Lisa Hochgraf

Pretty much everyone agrees that had truly rock-solid risk management practices been in place in the financial services industry in recent times, our economy wouldn't be in its current questionable state. So, it's a great time to talk about how better enterprise risk management would look, Steve Williams told attendees at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange yesterday in Kauai, Hawaii.

By  Lisa Hochgraf

A lot has been written over time in our industry about CU leaders who abuse the idea of ongoing education. Recently we all read about a Hawaii CU with a particularly liberal board travel budget.

But I'm here to tell you a story of commitment and dedication to education.

By Lisa Hochgraf

John Oliver convinced a client credit union board that focusing on developing strategic objectives and measurables would be superior to spending time developing a mission statement.

By Lisa Hochgraf

Credit union directors are bound by law to carry out their duties to the membership. No excuses get individual directors off the hook, John Oliver told attendees of CUES Director Strategy Seminar this week in San Diego.

Don't even try these, advised Oliver, president of Laurel Management Systems, Palm Springs, Calif.:

By Lisa Hochgraf

By Lisa Hochgraf

By James M. Warren

As a credit union CEO for 20 years, I can emphatically say that having the right volunteers and providing them with ongoing training is a critical element of the success of every credit union. It helps each director live up to their potential and funnel the expertise they bring from other industries to best serve the members.

By Kim Sponem

By Lisa Hochgraf

I got a big surprise a few weeks back when I got a PDF press release from a credit union public relations person. Since I was interested in the content of the release, I wrote back, asking for the release in Word, which I find easier to copy and paste into my electronic ideas files. (I also find Word files more editable if I'm directly using the release in one of CUES' publications.)

The PR person granted my request, but surprised me by writing back: "Typically we release them in PDF format so they're uneditable."