By Mary Auestad Arnold
Going into the holidays, it actually felt like old-home week here at the office. It all started when CUES President/CEO Fred Johnson wrote to our charter members and past directors, asking for their reflections on CUES’ role in their careers in honor of CUES’ 50th anniversary year, which starts this week.
Getting phone calls from Louise Hinton, who chaired the CUES Board that hired Fred in 1989, and John Buddle, CUES chairman when I joined the staff in 1985, were fun and inspiring ways to ring out 2011. Yet perhaps the very coolest response to Fred’s letter was the three-page hand-printed response from Elmer Tuttle, a 1979-82 CUES director and a member since 1967 (albeit retired status for the last 30 years). At age 94, he ended his letter with a question that should be on all our minds: Where will the credit union philosophy go in the next 50 years?
And so 2012 will be both a nostalgic look back at how CUES came to exist and—just as important—the continued need to look ahead, especially as Fred has recently announced his retirement at the end of 2012.
Interestingly, I can call on CUES’ first chairman, Jack Mitchell, now deceased, to set the stage for looking at both past and present. Writing in Sharing the American Dream, a book released for CUES’ 25th anniversary, Mitchell described the credit union environment at the time of CUES’ organizational meeting in June of 1962:
“Many of us recognized that if credit unions were going to succeed, they needed a lot of volunteers who were dedicated, talented, able and willing to put in the time to get the job done. We knew we basically had a good product, but we also knew that … we had to continually find ways to update it so that we didn’t get left behind and find ourselves one day obsolete. …
“In 1960, we had the structure. We had the volunteers. We had the idea. We had the credit union philosophy. But what became apparent to some of us was that we needed stronger professional management. Full-time managers who were meeting the challenges of growing in progressive credit unions needed all the help they could get.
“In those early years [CUES] fulfilled a very important function. We provided a forum for the professional credit union executive through assembly at conferences, through our publications and through correspondence and the telephone. We provided an early opportunity to network and learn together. It worked and it is still working.”
25 years later, Buddle echoes this last sentiment: “One thing that has not changed is the vital role played by CUES in advancing professionalism, maintaining our focus on helping people, and utilizing the best of technology to help realize that American Dream for millions of credit union members.”
Our current CUES Board, headed by Chairman Lary McCants, CCD, CCE, is poised to position the organization for its run to the next 50-year celebration. A true CUES champion, McCants is profiled in the current issue of Credit Union Management.
How has CUES impacted your career and what are your hopes for the organization’s future? Please add your thoughts in a comment!
Mary Auestad Arnold is VP/publications and social media for CUES.
