Chip Filson
The Seated Boxer, an iconic ancient Greek work of art, shows a grizzled veteran of the ring, equal parts resigned and ready to spring into action.
What I like is a sense of respite from competition, the powerful athletic physique and the tiredness that surrounds his humanity. Is he a winner this day? Are there more fights to go? How will his efforts be remembered?
These are questions that all of us encounter, in literal or figurative ways, in our daily efforts.
By E.C. Harrison
Credit unions were feeling out the uncertainty of financial markets on Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001. The dot-com bubble had burst. Layoff announcements followed a steady drumbeat. Many suspected the economy was in a recession. But looking out over Washington, D.C., from the 10th floor of the Connecticut Avenue offices of Callahan & Associates, it was a beautiful day with a clear view the city – bustling Farragut Square below and off in the distance, the White House and the control tower at Reagan National Airport.
Thunderstorms had swept through Washington on Monday. The grip of summer was finally loosening.The day dawned clear and mild. Chip Filson, president and co-founder, remembers those azure skies. It was going to be another busy day preparing for the all planning meetings. His wife was the press officer for a three-day annual economic conference somewhere in New York City. His daughter’s wedding was four days away.
“I remember the day as being very, very glorious. It was clear. It was a wonderful, bright fall day. Filson said. “It was one of those days that you enjoy being in the office and watching how things are unfolding.”
Nearly 2,800 miles across the country in Portland, Oregon, Wendell “Bucky” Sebastian , a co-founder of Callahans, now CEO at GTE Federal Credit Union, was preparing for a quarterly meeting of Open Financial Solutions (OFS). The CUSO was a technology R&D effort formed by a group of the country’s largest credit unions. Soon he’d reconnect with Ed Callahan, co-founder and namesake for the firm who previously served as chairman of the NCUA Board. Callahan had been CEO of Patelco Credit Union in California since 1987. He was a little over a year away from retirement.
The CUSO’s mission was to help credit unions work together to take advantage of rapid technology innovations affecting the financial services industry. It was was a pivotal time for moving forward together. “There were nine of us that were interested in a faster turnaround with our various IT providers, with what we wanted to get done and for our members,” Sebastian said.
But before he could leave for the meeting, his secretary called from Tampa, Florida, to let him know, “All hell was breaking loose.”
CAPTION: Smoke billows from the Twin Towers on 9/11 as New Yorkers flee to safety.
Most Americans watched the Sept. 11 attacks unfold on television. Soon after Filson’s daughter, Alix, alerted her fiancé Scott Patterson that the news was reporting that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower at 8:46 a.m., word spread around the Callahan office. The only television – usually turned to Bloomberg News — became the focal point. Live cameras trained on smoke billowing from the North Tower.
“I remember just becoming aware of this story about an airplane running into the twin towers in New York, and I thought, how does an accident like that happen today? It just seemed unusual, but an accident for sure,” Filson recalled.
After a second airliner crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., everything changed.
“Slowly, as things unfolded, we learned it wasn’t an accident. And then things seemed to escalate really fast. After the second plane, it was clearly an attack of some sort,” he said.
The event quickly became very personal for Filson. Patterson, his future son-in-law who had joined the firm in 1999 as an intern and was working on its website and internet strategy at the time, asked, “Chip, isn’t Joan in New York?”
Patterson remembers Filson looking up, his eyes widening as he processed the implication.
Joan was working as the public affairs officer for the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). The organization was holding its annual meeting titled NABE in a New York Minute. The conference was in a ground level ballroom at the Marriott World Trade Center Hotel between the two towers. The night before, she had visited the Windows on the World restaurant atop the World Trade Center with press covering the conference.
The first sign of trouble came when she heard a “terrific boom” outside the hotel. At first, some speculated that it might have been a gas explosion. Attendees left, some to go their rooms but most evacuating the hotel. No hotel announcement, just the instinct to leave.
She recalled that one man arrived late for the NABE meeting by taxi. “He jumped out of the taxi, and seconds later, a piece of stone hit the taxi and crushed it,” she said.
Once outside the Marriott, the magnitude of the event became clearer. She recalled seeing objects falling from the tower windows. At the time, she couldn’t comprehend that some of what she was seeing were people.
“You can’t process that there are bodies, but they were,” she said.
CAPTION: Fires at the Pentagon dominate the Potomac River and the Washington, D.C., skyline.
At 9:37 a.m. the attacks became real for residents of Washington, D.C., when the third plane crashed into the Pentagon. Employees at Callahans watched as smoke billowed from the building. They reached for their phones as rumors began racing through the office.
“People were saying, ‘Oh, I heard there’s a plane coming up the Potomac. You better get out of there.’ There were all kinds of rumors. I don’t know where people were getting all kinds of wild information,” Patterson recalled.
On the West Coast, the CUSO meeting of credit union executives never kicked off. All present stayed glued to the television. After the fourth hijacked jet crashed in rural Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. Eastern time, they realized that they needed to get home right away.
It was easy for some including Tom Sargent, CEO of First Tech Federal Credit Union, who was hosting the meeting in Portland, and Gary Oakland, CEO Boeing Employees’ Credit Union, facing a relatively short drive back to Tukwila, Washington. Both Callahan and Rudy Hanley, CEO of Orange County Teachers Federal Credit Union had to make it back to California.
But with all U.S. commercial and private airline flights grounded in an unprecedented action by federal authorities, returning home became much more difficult for the rest of the group. Dan Kampen, CEO of U.S. Central Credit Union, had to return to Kansas. Doug Ferraro, CEO of Bellco Credit Union, had to make it to Denver. Sebastian and Tom Dorety, CEO of Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union, had to drive all the way across the country to Tampa.
Fortunately, Ferraro had a rented SUV and offered to drive the stranded executives as far as he could. He told them, “Well, I can get you to Denver.” Six of them piled in and headed east.
“And we just drove. I mean, we just drove all night,” Sebastian said.
CAPTION: Wendell “Bucky” Sebastian
The group passed through Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming on pitch black highways, listening for updates on the radio. It all felt “surreal,” he recalled. When they arrived in Denver the next day, all flights were canceled and all rental cars were taken. Ferraro offered the men a repossessed vehicle from his credit union – a late-model Lincoln Town Car with blacked-out windows, no license plate and a bobble-head dog on the dashboard.
The plan was to drive the repo all the way to Tampa, dropping CEOs off along the way, then sell it at a Tampa auto auction and send the proceeds to Bellco. The only problem, he said, was that the car “clearly had been used to run drugs.”
One member of the group took one look at the Lincoln and asked, “What if we get stopped?” But the conclusion was the police had much bigger concerns that day.
“You know what we realized? Nobody’s going to stop us,” Sebastian said. After dropping off part of their group in Kansas City, they drove straight through until they “couldn’t drive any farther” and stopped at a motel in Macon, Georgia. It was their first sleep since the attacks.
Sebastian and Dorety headed south early that morning. But as they approached Tampa, they noticed that they were the only ones headed south. Lines of cars were leaving the bay area in the other direction. Sebastian soon learned that at the end their hurried cross-country home, on the same morning they arrived, Tropical Storm Gabrielle made landfall with 70 mph winds in Venice, Florida, just south of Tampa.
Sebastian called his vice president at GTE Federal Credit Union and learned he had already made the decision keep the doors open that Friday.
“He told me: ‘It’s a Category 1, and we’ve got to serve our people, so we’re not closing,'” Sebastian recalled. “I said, ‘That’s fine. I’m leaving it up to you.”
In New York City, Joan Filson’s journey home from the Ground Zero had taken more than a day, traveling by foot, by boat, a stranger’s car and an Amtrak train. Like so many others in New York that day, as the towers burned, she started walking with her NABE group toward the Hudson River. But soon she became separated one part going North and her group to pierside.
As massive cloud of black smoke approached, she held a light jacket over her face as a makeshift mask. At the river the second plane had not yet hit. Joan and a friend talked about swimming to NJ if need be because the water was still warm. Eventually she boarded one of the New York Waterways ferries evacuating people from lower Manhattan. Even aboard the boat, the danger didn’t seem over. Passengers watched the skies, saw the black smoke growing higher, and feared “there could be an attack from on high.”
Once in New Jersey, the car rental agencies were mobbed. A young woman she had met took Filson to her apartment for a while so she could calm down. She finally managed to get word that she was OK to her husband though economist Diane Swonk’s Bank One’s office uptown. Renting a car was impossible, but she caught a ride south to Philadelphia with a stranger in the car rental office and spent that night with friends, whose daughter raced across Philly to pick her up at the airport, where she had been dropped. The next day, she boarded a train for home in Bethesda, Maryland.
Reflecting on the ordeal, she remembered people commenting on the amount of dust on their shoes. She doesn’t remember hearing the towers’ collapse or experiencing the dust cloud. But she added, “Maybe I’ve just blotted all that out.”
Filson and his wife didn’t get to speak to each other until she returned that next day. In downtown Washington on Tuesday, Callahan employees had a clear view of the traffic leaving the city and flooding the Metro. By lunch time, he gave everyone the option to go home to be with their families.
Filson stayed behind, manning the phones.
“If there’s panic, that’s what the terrorists want,” he said. “I decided to stay and answer the phones to do what I can to assure the credit union community that we’re still here.”
That night, President George Bush addressed the nation and assured the American people that two things were still functioning – the federal government and the U.S. financial system. “Our financial institutions remain strong, and the American economy will be open for business, as well,” he said.
CAPTION: Ed Callahan
While there were fears that the crisis could trigger a run on the banks and credit unions, it never came. Weeks later, Callahan wrote that it was important for Patelco to keep its doors open that week. “One was symbolic, of course: We would show a face of continuity, and we would not take an action that might lead others to succumb to fears about their savings. The other was functional: We really were there to carry out transactions, provide cash or whatever else people wanted.”
Four days after he watched the Pentagon burn from his office window, Scott and Alix Patterson married – as planned. Many invited guests – including Patterson’s best man in Texas – couldn’t attend because their flights were canceled. But they invited their church friends, neighbors and many other well wishers.
Patterson recalled that those in attendance welcomed the chance to do something joyful after spending days glued to television coverage, wondering what had happened and whether the country was at war. The newlyweds left, as planned, for their honeymoon in Greece. There, they experienced the international outpouring of concern and support for America firsthand.
“On our honeymoon, being abroad and being Americans, we felt the whole world was shocked and upset about what had happened, especially to the United States,” Patterson said.
CAPTION: Newlyweds Alix and Scott Patterson, surrounded by family
For Sebastian, 9/11 reinforced how little Americans understood the Middle East and other parts of the world. The attacks caught us by surprise and demonstrated the consequences of our limited knowledge. But it also brought Americans closer together – perhaps closer than any other time since the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.
“We had to work together. We had to stick together. We had to cooperate,” he said. Like the mission of credit unions, he said, “all of the things that we can do cooperatively are almost always done better.”
The 9/11 attacks revealed what people are capable of at their best – courage, sacrifice, generosity and unity. That is the part we must never forget.
“The reaction to 9/11 is the most powerful example of what a united country and its people can do,” Filson said. “But it shouldn’t just be just because we’re threatened. It should be because of who we are and what we believe in.”
For many younger people, born after 9/11, other life experiences have crowded out our past,”he said.
“But forgetfulness or unfamiliarity of pivotal events has consequences,” Filson said. “Events do have long-term impact. People will have different views of what those consequences were for good or for ill, but the past is always with us.”
CAPTION: Newspapers across the country declare the historic implications of the 9/11 attacks.
E.C. Harrison is a freelance writer with more than 25 years of experience covering a wide range of topic including credit unions, financial services, technology
Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. We recall because the past is always with us – or as novelist William Falkner said 75 years ago – “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
The impact of 9/11 marked all Americans and the credit union community.
Tomorrow veteran CreditUnions.com writer Cal Harrison will share cyrrent conversations and archive excerpts from Callahan’s website about our industry’s response to the 9/11 attacks.
The aftereffects of 9/11 cast a shadow still today: war and instability in the Middle East; the Afghanistan 20-year military engagement; an economy weakening and consumer confidence falling; new travel security and airline’s and other industry’s confront continuing risk from geopolitical events.
The threats facing us then continue now. We can learn from past responses. In a January 2002 post on creditunions.com, Ed Callahan, former NCUA Chair and CEO of Patelco wrote of his credit union’s actions that day.
He pointed out President George Bush’s national address the evening of 9/11 affirmed the federal government has reopened its offices, “our financial institutions remain strong, and the American economy will be open for business, as well.”
Ed wrote: “People at my credit union and undoubtedly thousands more wanted to be with their families on that terrible and unsettling day. Who knew what else might be in store for us, or where? I sympathized. I felt a keen need to be with my family also.
“We allowed anyone to go home who felt strongly they should do so. But others remained and kept the doors open that day, and the days following. This was important on two levels. One was symbolic, of course: We would show a face of continuity, and we would not take an action that might lead others to succumb to fears about their savings. The other was functional: We really were there to carry out transactions, provide cash or whatever else people wanted.”
Like many in the wake of 9-11, I believed this latest national crisis was an opportunity to show the strength of credit union’s service model. In October 2001 I wrote of the inherent capability for cooperatives to stand up during a crisis:
“In the past, the credit union approach has flourished in times of uncertainty. The Federal Credit Union Act was passed in 1934, building on experiences from over 20 states, to help members find collective strength to meet individual need during the Depression.
I can think of no better time or place to be in the fall of 2001 than working in the credit union community.”
Cal writes tomorrow about personal experiences of that day. A day we witnessed together a foreign attack on America’s homeland. With all the uncertainty about what would come next for our country. Questions that are ongoing today.
Excerpts from a post-event writings in 2001. The first of three aericles this week about events a quarter of a century ago.
What’s different after September 11? |
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| The traditional seasonal patterns of very low savings growth and strong loan growth in the third quarter were completely reversed in 2001. The three-month increase in savings for the 1,587 credit unions over $50 million in assets was 3.6%, or almost twice the rate in the same period in 2000.
Likewise, the three-month loan increase of only 3.1% was half the 6.5% rate in the 2000 third quarter.While we now know that the economy has officially been in a recession since March, the primary event affecting this quarter was the September 11th terrorist attack and the subsequent pause of most consumer spending, borrowing and investing activity. |
SAFE’s purposed merger rationale with BECU has been full of a lot of generalities and PR hype, but few objective facts.
The one fact that SAFE member owners should be told is that they have a real factual $41 million better financial value than BECU offers its own members.
Let’s look at what each credit union’s members pay on loans and receive on savings.
From each credit unions June 2026 NCUA call report we learn that SAFE members total yield on loans was 4.96% versus BECU’s loan yield of 5.90%. SAFE members are an average saving almost 1% (,94 basis points) by getting their loans at SAFE.
This savings totals $31 million for the $3.1 billion in SAFE members’ loans outstanding over the one year.
When a commentator looked up the two credit unions’ posted rates one can instantly see why SAFE is a much better value for members.
New and Used Car loans
New Car: SAFE: 5.19% Boeing: 5.89%
Used Car: SAFE: 5.29% Boeing: 6.19%
Credit Cards
SAFE; 5/3/1 Cash back, 15.29% rate
Boeing, 1.5% Cash back, 16.49% rate
HELOC or Home improvement loans
SAFE 6.75%; Boeing 6.99%
While not every member borrows, every member must have a savings account.
Again SAFE is a better financial value by far according to the June 2026 NCUA call report data.
SAFE’s cost of funds is 1.43% versus 1.16% for BECU members a difference of ,27 % or over $10.5 million for a full year. Here are examples of SAFE’s better rates:
Savings:
6 mo CD: SAFE: 2.25% Boeing: 1.98%
24 mo CD: SAFE: 2.90% Boeing: 2.23%
36 mo CD: SAFE: 3.00% Boeing; 1.93%
48 mo CD: SAFE: 3.05% Boeing: 1.69%
Checking
SAFE; 3% interest up to $3,000, = $90 a year in interest paid to member.
Boeing; 3% up to $500, .10% after that = $17.50 paid to member.
Boeings operating expense to average assets at 3.43% is 33% higher than SAFE’s ratio of 2.59%.
Once BECU takes over SAFE’s operations with its business model that would mean that over a full year SAFE’s operating expense would rise by as much as a third above $23 million spent in just thie first six months of 2026. Fpr a full year that would result in $46 million more costs for BECU high cost structure. That operating expense structure will be controlling after the merger. That would mean that SAFE’s annualized income of over $42 million in 2026, and for years afterwards, would be wiped out by BECU’s higher cost stricture.
In virtually every measure of member value (above) SAFE provides its owners objectively better prices, local convenience and community control. Moreover on transitional indicators of institutional performance such as loan and share growth or return on assets (.97 versus 58), SAFE is also superior.
The differences in SAFE’s value for members is so much greater than BECU that one must question not only their individual and collective judgment but whether there was any factual due diligence at all. Members are being sold a story line that flies in the face of every reasonable comparison. Size is not better. Better is better. SAFE has a track record of serving its community and member owners much superior to BECU’s on every point of comparison.
The members should not just vote No on this merger, but go further and take steps to find leaders who truly understand what the purpose and advantage of a cooperative are. And most importantly always putting their member interests first.
This deeply flawed, incomprehensible board proposal should be voted down by every SAFE member.
Note about the author: After earning his MBA from UCLA John spent 20+ years in the for-profit world. He says the biggest challenge of leaving corporate roles for credit unions was the realization that loans were assets, and savings a liability. He was CEO of American Airlines FCU for 17 years. He then guided a troubled credit union to stability for three years, followed by a decade of consulting and speaking about leadership and strategy.
by John Tippets
Leadership character has a great many dimensions. Among these are, to be trusted, honest and open. Customers, owners, and employees rightly expect no less.
Leaders also have a role as stewards, the care and protection of the reputation and brand, the quality of its products, the welfare of employees and their families, and the financial and physical assets of the entity. These are all parts of his or her responsibility.
Sadly, in today’s world these principles are far too often not adhered to, or intentionally violated. In some charities, NGOs and similar non-profit entities, overhead costs including numbers of executives with excessive compensation are eating up significant portions of donations, government (taxpayers) funding or of earned incomes.
We are seeing these fraud “clinics” diverting their dollars to cars, boats, vacations, and other personal benefits. We see politicians compromised, doing the bidding of large donors, or taking personal financial advantage of non-public information.
Credit Unions are ‘not-for-profit’ co-operatives with tax exemption certifying their civic public duty role. Credit Union employees go to work every day to help improve the lives and welfare of their members and their communities. Credit Union employees generally love what they do and love the people they do it for. One credit union (of many or most) which has done a fantastic job living this vision and mission for generations has been SAFE Credit Union of Sacramento, California.
So, it is stunning to me (and likely to many) to learn of plans by the SAFE Board of Directors and the Senior Executives to have the SAFE Credit Union acquired by (merged with) another credit union.
Hopefully, all members will be able to learn of the factual pros and cons, the operational changes, and the financial and service impacts. Will employees be encouraged to share their thoughts, or will they be instructed otherwise and just go along? Will all the insiders’ seemingly extreme benefits be fully disclosed and justified?
My initial text above is about the loss in many institutions where the character of leadership is vital. We know this process involving SAFE Credit Union would at the minimum meet the legal and regulatory requirements (that’s the lawyers’ job). But the real questions are whether the potential and likely outcomes are, in all ways, morally right and consistent with the principles and purpose for which SAFE exists?
After over a year of behind the scenes planning and dividing the spoils, the SAFE-Boeing Employees Credit union takeover plan is now officially public.
Below is the link to the just posted Member Notice. Following is one analyst’s initial reaction to this free transfer and total future control of over $4.6 billion assets and $450million of member equity owned by the 245,000 residents of California’s capital city.
However the most important fact for the SAFE members is that the SAFE board intends to do an end run around the California statutory requirement that a majority of members must approve the merger by asking for an exception to the law. Here is the wording from the ballot:
this is to advise you that the Board of Directors will make an application under California Financial Code Section 15201(b) for approval of the merger in the event that a majority of all members of SAFE do not vote to approve the merger, in person at the meeting, or by mail-in or online ballot.
This pretense of 60days of instant democracy by a board that has had no contested election in recent memory just compounds this financial farce.
If there was ever a case for the credit union community in California and beyond to stand up for the member’s rights and due process this is it. Or, at a minumum publish the names of the vendors and advisors who devised this coop travesty and withdraw any further business.
If this perversion of everything credit unions represent in cooperative purpose were tosucceed, California will become the next happy hunting ground for every financial predator.
SAFE’s leadership does not want to even try to get the majority of members to vote because that would require a public PR campaign and open dialogue. That would give members and the community a chance to learn the full facts of what this sellout will cost them.
Instead SAFE’s ;eaders. the CEO and Board, intend to rely on the printed ballot vote in a multi-page mailing in which members are asked to approve-no contrary information presented.
SAFE does not want to do the responsible and hard work to get their owner’s attention and support to win a majority vote. They are hoping their self-serving one side only mailing will cause members to auto-check the yes box. They want to keep public debate to a minimum and not raise any attention or discussion of the harmful consequences caused by this divestiture of local leadership on the future Sacramento, California’s capital city.
Here’s the link to the full document on NCUA’s web site.
https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NCUA-2026-1552
Well, looks like SAFE is making its case. So much to chew on here, but a few initial observations.
* A total of $14.56 million in payments to executives that were triggered by this merger.
*No worries, they’re only paying out 33 basis points of the members capital to executives.
*The exec payouts equate to about half of the amount of the interest paid to SAFE members so far this year. Instead of paying execs, how about better rates and make the home grants 3 or 4 million instead of $500,000. Cool member benefit – for all 60 out of the 245,000 members lucky enough to get it.
*The stated, quantified benefits to SAFE members are $7.4 million, spread across 245,000 members, or just over one-half of the amount being paid to 5 executives. I repeat: 245,000 owners get 7.4 million, 5 execs get $14.56 million.
*Interesting approach to tack on a vote for donations to community partners. That shouldn’t be legal to add this this vote, if it is. Clever little PR move to distract and act like they can’t afford to do it themselves.
*Payouts to the community and execs, but no reserve distribution to members. The stated reason is because SAFE’s capital is not higher than Boeing’s. That’s backward logic. SAFE’s capital of is 177 million in EXCESS of what’s required to be considered WELL capitalized. But no, they can’t afford these benefits unless they merge, and now that they’re merging to where the continuing credit union will have an even more extreme excess capital position, they refuse to let member owners have any of their money.
*Carefully worded language about the retention bonus payments through the “post-merger transition.” The translation of that: Faye is leaving in 18 months. The divisions and departments will report into their functional heads. SAFE will be gobbled up, Sacramento job losses wlll be local control? LOL?
*2nd place payout winners? SAFE directors. Boeing reports their execs spend 6 hours a month doing their work. 2 lucky winners get the same job and go from zero pay to $125,000 a year or $400 an hour. Those two directors voted for and strongly recommend this merger. Hmm.. nothing to see here.
(and no, being a director of a CU seven times larger doesn’t not mean it’s seven times more work, or seven times harder)
More comments to follow in the days ahead. In the meantime here are a number of posts from https://www.secujustasking.com/ documenting the harm to members.
Joan and I attended yesterday’s flag day services at nearby St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral. The service and following community luncheon preceded the country’s Independence Day celebration today.
A lunch was shared for the entire community. Here is a picture of several persons at our table.
The double arm amputee who also has one leg was wounded in 2023. His name is Oleksander He is 46 and joined the Ukrainian military in 2019. His wife to his right has her hand on his knee. They have two children living in Ukraine.
He was wounded when up to two dozen Russian drone grenades were dropped on his position. During his triage evacuation and subsequent surgeries, his heart stopped twice once for almost 40 minutes.
He came to the US for prosthetics and other recovery surgeries and followup exercises for new life skills. His wife has been with him all along. She feeds him and is his primary care giver.
Neither speak English. The US translator next to him is a US Army reservist who has served ten years on active duty and speaks five languages.
Oleksander’s temporary immigration status for additional care was denied. He leaves Walter Reed hospital in September. The church community gave him a monetary gift to help with the transfer home.
This couple’s example of courage, perseverance and gratitude for their US community’s embrace is an example for citizens of every society that seeks democratic rule.
Ukraine’s future is in good hands, even when hands are missing, because the heart still paces and hope endures.
This couple’s sacrifice is a witness to the best that individuals can offer society. This is why Ukraine still stands strong and free this Independence Day after four and one half years fighting Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s independence was first celebrated when Alexander was 11 years old. He could have no idea the commitment he would be asked to make for that freedom to endure.
His smile is his hope for the future. A tribute to his country and an example of what some give for all who want to live in freedom.
Courage takes many forms in life.
Sometimes it is emergency responders running toward disaster to provide help. Think of the New York fireman who climbed the stairs of the World Trade Center knowing full well the dangers.
Emotional courage can be as simple as the ability to say “I’m sorry” when your words hurt another person, often in private.
In a public contexts it is someone raising their voice to object. by openly standing against the current powers that be. Think of protestors ushered our of a congressional hearing.
Moral courage is needed when challenging prevailing social or economic inequities that have been norms for generations. Or to stand up to those in authority who misuse or abuse their power.
in our life span there will be times to “stand up and do the right thing” when confronted by situations that call for acts of individual bravery.
It is even harder when our immediate self-interest is not in jeopardy, We always have the option to watch, “play it safe.”
Every society, every organization, every community needs individuals who. when much is at stake, have the courage to do what is right not what is expedient. In other words, to let someone else take care of it. Not my job.
Below is a post with a two minute video from an Ukrainian drone monitoring an attempted evacuation of two soldiers wounded in an assault.
They were being carried by an unmanned vehicle which was stopped, hit by a Russian drone. Note they are strapped in. Unable to move or help themselves.
Suddenly a unarmored normal pickup truck speeds to the scene and backs up on the one lane road to the two soldiers. The driver jumps out, lifts and pushes both wounded men into the back of the pickup. He wears no helmet or body armor.
Watch full screen to see close up as he lifts both and push them into the open truck bed.
He speeds away, serves around a disabled vehicle on the road and then reaches to safety entering a part of the road covered with netting.
The action is in broad daylight and would be seen by Russian enemy drones.
He completes this entire mission in about two minutes
The driver is the battalion unit”s commander.
Most of us will never have such a life and death choice. This example reminds us that individuals can do extraordinary acts for others’ well being. Not because of position, power or reward, but because that is who we can be when presented with circumstances testing what we truly believe.
We all have the potential to do the right thing. It doesn’t take a battlefield evacuation to show courage. Standing against the market’s status quo was and for some still today, the motivation for working or leading a credit union.
Click on the link, read the intro, then watch the video. This is an action which shows the potential in each of us-when we feel called to stand up for the common good or welfare of others.
I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,
maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,
no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady
by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table
and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,
and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,
observing his progress through glasses that moments before
he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.
“Splitting an Order” by Ted Kooser from Splitting an Order.
Note: This reprint of a July 2021 post reminds us of the challenge for new leaders as the NCUA board evaluates priorities and course corrections. (cwf)
What would you think if you learned that Warren Buffet was shorting Berkshire stock? Or Elon Musk prefers driving a Lexus? Or Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to test fly his Blue Origin Space capsule?
None of these situations is true. And because the opposite is the case, observers’ trust in these leaders and their organizations is sustained.
A Credit Union Example
Seven years ago, in October 2015, NCUA over the objection of board member Mark McWatters, approved a final 424-page RBC rule. This was NCUA’s second attempt to impose this new reg which was as equally unsupportable as the first. Both attempts were universally opposed by credit unions.
One of the rationales for the rule stated in the 2014 NCUA Annual Report was “the issuance in 2013 of new risk-based capital rules by the FDIC, the office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.” (page 12)
Certainly, an impressive endorsement by banking regulators. However, in September 2019 the FDIC with the full concurrence of the Comptroller and Federal Reserve removed RBC requirements for all community banks under $10 billion. Did NCUA follow its peer’s decision? No, It plodded on, kicking the can down the road even though one of their primary justifications was gone.
What the Rule Says About NCUA’s Self Confidence
But there is another insight, besides bureaucratic obstinacy, to take from the final proposal.
The agency published a two-page summary — Risk Weights At a Glance –as the final summary of absolute and relative risk of every possible balance sheet asset. Three judgments are illuminating.
Credit unions investing in the capital of the CLF have 0 risk. Since the CLF has not made a loan for over a decade, it suggests how the agency is thinking about the CLF’s role assisting credit unions in the future.
The FHLB’s do make loans to credit unions. To qualify for these, a credit union must buy stock in the bank. NCUA determined these stock purchases should be assigned a 20% risk weighting.
Even though no FHLB organization has ever failed, the agency believes there is still a small risk. But it is nowhere near the risk of a credit union investing in a CUSO, which requires a 100-150% weighting.
But the most ominous risk is for credit unions’ 1% capital deposit in the NCUSIF. According to the chart, the 1% deposit cannot even be counted as an asset. It must be subtracted in full from the numerator of the credit union’s net worth and from the denominator’s total of all risk weighted assets.
It is counted as having no value despite having been untouched for almost 40 years. It is an earning asset, withdrawable in a voluntary liquidation or conversion to private insurance. On both credit union and NCUSIF balance sheets it is carried at full value. Multiple national accounting firms have stated this asset “fairly presents” both aspects of this transaction.
What would subtracting this asset mean for the NCUSIF’s Risk Based Capital ratio! If credit unions cannot count this as an asset, how can NCUA include these deposits in the NCUSIF’s net worth?
One interpretation is that this is just one of many foolish aspects of the final RBC rule which becomes effective January 1, 2022. But there may be more intention than one might think.
A Scary Thought
This NCUSIF total write-off of the 1% from net worth, like the hypothetical made up examples first above , points to an uncomfortable reality. This is an agency whose leaders lack confidence when managing the ever growing resources credit unions provide. And if they lack the understanding of this cooperative fund’s operations, what message is sent to credit union members?
Today the NCUSIF equity level above the 1% deposit totals over $4.7 billion. Should a loss of that magnitude or more occur, the primary question will not be about the status of the 1% deposit, but where was the regulator?
The cumulative loss rate for he NCUSIF over the past 12 years and two financial crises, is 1.5 basis points. To project a loss at least 20 times this recent real world experience, is deeply troubling. (2,000 percent, i.e. 30/1.5)
Is that potential financial catastrophe why the agency wants to eliminate the 1% from credit unions’ net worth today? And then avoiding accountability for how the agency’s oversight allowed such a situation to develop? Recall that NCUA had full time examiners onsite in WesCorp and US Central for years before both were conserved and subsequently liquidated.
Now that is a scary thought.