Grand Rapids, MI – July 6th, 2011
Last week at its 20th Annual Leadership Conference, Randy Karnes, CU*Answers CEO presented the theme for this year’s Conference as he kicked off the event with a presentation focusing upon “My Credit Union Is My Community”

In announcing this theme, Karnes challenged attending CEO’s for considering what represents a community, traditional thinking of what a community is, and who should we be talking about within our communities of today. Karnes said our communities include:

1. Our Localities – where you live
2. Our Members – yours (other CU’s and mine)
3. Our Professionals – employees of CU’s; regulators, trade associations, CUSO’s, consultants and vendors.
4. Our Network – our infrastructure; the technology that links us all and creates a communication highway.
5. Our Volunteers – for every credit union.

Karnes asked the group to consider that if we indeed care about our communities, and the opportunity and benefit they uniquely provide, what’s the best way to make sure each of these components may trust that we, as industry partners working together to better serve members, are built to respect and represent their on-going needs? He went on to present several thoughts for taking this community design to the next level – by building communities as a cooperative business design for better maximizing future business opportunities.