By Lisa Hochgraf
Yesterday at CUES' Directors Conference in Palm Springs, Calif., I had the great pleasure to hear the presentation of Christopher Gardner, on whose life the film "Pursuit of Happyness" was based.
Chris told his touching and sometimes funny story of perseverance, how he went from rags to riches, living in homeless shelters and caring for his 14-month-old son, while following his dream of becoming a stockbroker. Now the wealthy owner of a well-respected brokerage house, Chris said that part of what helped him through was living up to a promise he'd made to himself when he was five. Because his own father was absent from his childhood, Chris was committed to breaking the cycle of children not knowing their fathers. And stay with his son he did.
Chris didn't talk directly about how this applies to credit unions. But the connection doesn't seem too much of a stretch. Credit unions are committed to their members, and to helping their members break cycles of financial trouble, whether intrinsic or imposed from outside.
I know about this commitment not only from my own experience, but also from data presented during another Directors Conference session. Yesterday morning Chip Filson, president of Callahan and Associates, discussed how during the recent economic crisis, credit unions have been filling the marketplace void. They've stayed committed to members, making loans, expanding credit card lines and even, in some cases, adding products (such as student lending).
"Credit unions in every credit market have been the first responders in that 9/11 sense of the term," Filson told attendees. "You were there not because of some government program, not because this is something you were called on to do. You were there because you were already there. You were doing what you were chartered to do: to be there for members."
How cool is that? It's no surprise I'm proud to work in this industry.
Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES editor.
