Back in mid-March, the Credit
Union Times carried a front page story on Chip Filson and his petition for NCUA board members to be
motivated by the unique contributions and needs of a cooperative business.
The article included comments from several credit union
executives, two of which struck a chord with me. One was Randy Karnes, CEO of
CU Answers, who said Congress didn’t create the credit union charter because
the nation needed “nice banks.” He pointed to the cooperative principles as the
defining element which makes the structure of credit unions different from
banks.
Henry Meier, associate general counsel for the Credit Union
Association of New York was the second. Henry suggested that those advocating
for the cooperative structure to play a larger role in the credit union
industry seem to be promoting it for its own sake.
Hearing the comments of both executives took me back down
memory lane into the corporate credit union environment. There, as I rubbed
elbows with right-brainers and left brainers alike, I began to realize more and
more how important it was to find a course of harmony between the cooperative
principles and the principles of asset/liability management, if a credit union was
to be truly faithful to its “soul” purpose.
