By Frank J. Diekmann
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
No, they should not. They brought you here. They are the reason you are reading this. And for those reasons and so many others I thank you for joining me here graveside at Cooperative Hills Cemetery and Mortuary, for while we celebrate a new year, let us never forgot the dearly departed credit unions of 2016.
They take with them the hopes and aspirations of their founding members, of sacrifices and long hours by many volunteers and underpaid managers, of tough disagreements and joyous celebrations in board rooms, of members whose parents had brought them in to open kids accounts who are now returning with children of their own to these CUs’ own offspring.
They leave behind names representing industries and companies that have decayed or even disappeared, and faded wall photos of women in bleached bouffants, men in lime leisure suits, and training sessions on how to use the fax machine.
In this, the saddest column I write every year, we say our final goodbyes to all of them.
We lament that even the crash cart apparently could not resurrect Desert Medical, Altoona Regional Health System, Mount St. Mary’s Hospital, St. Edward Mercy Hospital (for which there wasn’t any), Health Associates, Cheshire Health, and Holy Family Hospital Employees. We can’t help but note, too, that for Healthfirst CU, apparently, that wasn’t the case.
When a Nametag Was Enough
It remains advice in many a family, handed down from generation to generation—“Get yourself a good, steady government job; pay may not always be great, but it’s permanent work.” And yet the same apparently can’t be said of government employee credit unions, as in 2016 we saw the final 5300s for Wallingford Municipal, SF Municipal Railway Employees, Youngstown Ohio City Employees, Howard County Employees, Howard County Culver City Employees, Jefferson County Public Employees, Chicopee Municipal Employees, Suffolk VA City Employees, and Stratford Municipal Employees. We hope they at least popped one last cork at Champaign Municipal Employees CU.
We celebrate the classic CU names that conjure up another era of black and white movies, such as Division 605 Motor Coach; as well as the plain-and-simple names that reflected plain-and-simple work, such as Millwrights/Piledrivers of Pittsburg and Clearfield Stone Workers.
We fondly recall the days when you knew just who a credit union served by looking at another conference attendee’s nametag, as was the case with Florence Dupont Employees, MSA Employees, Grange Mutual Employees, Huribut Employees, Edge Moor Dupont Employees, Bailey, Inc. Employees, Central Hudson Employees, Tidewater Dominion Employees, General Mills Employees, Delaware River Employees, Timken Aerospace, Monofrax Employees, and Globe Industries Employees (which sounds like something out of Marvel Comics, even if no superhero came to the rescue).
Then there was the CU that had a wide-open FOM long before it was fashionable: just plain Employees CU.
The same can be said of knowing someone’s hometown just from their nametag, as well, as demonstrated by the now former Beech Island, McKenzie Valley, Berea, Pittsburgh Central, Grantsville, Puget Sound, Monroe, Clarkston Brandon Community, Montauk, Alloy Scottsdale St. Josephs Broodmoor, Erie Shores, Fort Gordon and Community, Clearwater, Lehigh Valley, Hempfield Area, Quinnipiac Valley Community, Members 1st of Mississippi, Northwest Georgia, Arkansas Valley, and Greater Piedmont.
We are left to wonder as the year closes, however, if the lessons apparently came after the test for Carroll County School Employees, Randolph County School Employees, Polk County Schools Employees, Lubbock County Schools, Pittston Area School Employees, Forrest-Petal Educational, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Jeff-Co Schools, Norfolk Schools, Wyoming County School Employees, and Newton Teachers (and are hopeful the lessons were passed on).
We pause and remember in prayer Wesley AME Zion, Cory Methodist Church, Sacred Heart of Corpus Christi, Cornerstone Baptist Church, St. Gertrude, St. Mary’s Assumption Parish, Indiana United Methodist, St. Luke’s, Florida Baptist, St. Paul’s Parish, Immanuel Baptist Church, and Faith Based. Even the poor Rector (CU) couldn’t find salvation this year.
As 2016 concludes we are left once again with many questions, such as was it Sirius that finally did in FM Financial? Why wasn’t 1st Select or Southern Select Community their members’ first selection? Just how tough had life become at Frontier Community? Where is Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority now housed? Did the regulators storm AM Castle Employees, and was the management team looking in the wrong direction when the threat finally arrived for Defense Contractors South CU? Where did they find a truck when they were packing up Ryder System CU? Perhaps we’ll never know.
And More Questions...
But that doesn’t stop us from continuing to ask: what were they talking about in the last days of Oral CU? Was it the sheer weight of the ATM (or just annoyed members with overstuffed, jingly pockets) that finally claimed Pennypack? Who made the call to shutter Phone-Co?
We assume the death notice was published on a heavy, glossy stock at Printing Office Employees; that the captain went down with the ship at Anchor Seven, and that until the very end everyone was on a first name basis at Christopher CU.
As credit unions move into 2017 let us never forget MEA is now MIA, that erosion eventually wore down even Keystone and Cornerstone, and that in a year when the Confederate flag was much debated, Jeff Davis CU would have its lights turned out in Georgia. Let us remember, too, 2016 was a year when The Eagle (CU) didn’t soar, when Deluxe just wasn’t the version anyone wanted, and, even though they say it takes a village, that wasn’t the case for Village Community.
We will be left never knowing what Cerrobrass and Rancocas and Corco and Amicus and Ascentia and So Val Tel were all about. Who was the last to turn off the valves at Board of Water Supply and Macon Water Works? What became of the heritage of The Heritage and Oswego Heritage? When was it decided a viable future would never be within the grasp of Reach? Did anyone on the boards at First State Refinery or Union Oil Santa Fe Springs finally just admit “we’re out of gas?” And who finally killed Dexter?
To RPI Employees, we say RIP!; in fact, as they take their abbreviations with them, just FYI, we wish the same for ECAI, BIP, TPC, CUMB, RCT, CBC and BCBSNC.
A Solemn Occasion, But...
Solemn as this occasion may be, it is difficult to resist observing the ironies of 2016, that Our Lady of Victory Institutions actually lost; that Fiscal CU apparently wasn’t; that United VIP wasn’t as important as it might have thought it was; that Trustus did not have enough members who did, that life was no bowl of fruit for Cherry Employees, and that for Bright Hope CU, well…
We learned this year that no matter how lovely the name—we’re rhapsodizing about you, Chestnut Run, Pine Creek and Sierra Point CUs—it doesn’t necessarily avert an ugly result (perhaps you were mistaken for housing developments?). Nor, apparently, is enlightenment any assurance of a future, as the scribes can now record of Renaissance CDCU.
Once again we discovered that no place on the map is a guarantee of survival for any credit union, as Southshore, Central, DOW Northeast, West Coast, and High Plains will attest. And that includes one operation that apparently represented all points: Area CU. Big broad names and those that imply strength were no guarantee, either, as Tri-County, Community Financial, S.T.A.R. Community, Freedom, Oak Trust, United Financial, Horizon Community and Valley Community all now know.
Each and every year we question how the sad news was delivered to the likes of Norfolk VA Postal CU, My Postal, Postmark CU, and Kenosha Postal Employees. Surely not a final indignity: an email!
This was the year, too, when the lights were turned off at Edison Financial (perhaps by Electrical Workers CU on its way out); as well as the year in which we simply must conclude it was Apple’s decision to change the earphone plug-in on its iPhones that finally did in A.C. Jaacks CU.
And no, we’re not leaving 2016 without remembering you one last time, Manistee and Middconn and Lamar Civic and Ducote and Irondequoit and Reid Temple and Menard and Belvoir and Howland-Enfield and Arg Brandford and Pacoe and Bergen and Panhandle Cooperative and Associated and Warden Captree and Jeffco and Associated and Pacoe.
And, of course, Alamo CU, we shall always remember you.
We weren’t there in the boardrooms at the very end, but for a CU named Wat we assume there was a WTF moment or two; for Port Ivory, a recognition its ship had sailed; for Tulip Cooperative, a sad reminder of the Dutch in the 1600s; and for Ecolab, disappointing test results.
Maybe most of all, we’ll recall 2016 as the year, appropriately it seems, that claimed a CU called Clinton.
What Should Be Remembered Most of All
As we turn out the office lights on all of them, let us never forget that they often burned late into the evening over all the years as a CU manager compassionately pushed aside their own lives and worked into the night trying to find ways to help a member who was struggling. We’ll never know their individual stories, but collectively they are all the credit union story–let’s hope those lights keep burning in 2017 and beyond.
Here’s to hoping CUs make all those auld acquaintances their new ones, too.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.