Credit union success stories

Ken Doleman is my partnering coach and he was here last year.  We were fortunate to meet up with one of the credit unions he worked with last year.  By coincidence the Chair of the board is Oyuna and our credit union hosted her during the women’s mentoring program about two years ago.  It was a great visit and I was able to see the results of the coaching that Ken provided to the credit union and the work that Oyuna took back from Coastal Community Credit Union.  It’s an amazing success story.  In just nine months of very hard work, the team was able to meet many of their goals and improve overall performance.  Loan growth of 48 per cent, reduced loan losses, increase in fee income, 106 per cent increase in net income, 8 per cent increase in paid in capital, and an increase in members.  Most of this was attributed to education programs provided by the staff and a focus on some good goals that Ken was able to help them out with.  There is a real story here for CCA, but I will defer to Ken as he can speak to the details.  

Ken Doleman (right) meets with Auggie, a member of the credit union

We also got to meet three of the credit union members.  One was a pharmacist who over the years went from a one room shop and no employees to owning the entire building, expanding to groceries and renting the extra spaces to others.  She now employs 15 people; she strongly encourages them all to open memberships at the credit union.  She has very low employee turnover and guarantees the employees loans when they want to borrow to achieve their personal goals.  We were introduced to an employee who recently borrowed to purchase material to build a ger, her first home.

Auggie is a young man who owns his own general contracting firm.  We met him at a project that he was about to finish.  We learned that he employs 26 full-time employees and another 20 on-call staff.  He renovates buildings and apartments and also builds the furniture to outfit the space.  It’s pretty high-end stuff.  We will get the opportunity to see his finished work when we get back to UB.  Oyuna was surprised to learn how many people he is employing and the extent of his business.  Just a reminder of how important it is to know your members and visit their businesses.

Lastly, we met a member who produces mayonnaise and ketchup in a very small industrial kitchen and sells them to food markets.  She employs four people and they sell about US $14,000 to US $16,000 a month of the product.  That’s a lot condiments for a meat-eating nation…

-- Bruno Dragani