FAIRHOPE, AL – August 29, 2012

As Hurricane Isaac worked its way up the Gulf, staff at CU*SOUTH, a CUSO in Mobile, Alabama, called on their partners in the hot, dry, Midwest and Northwest to make sure that their credit union clients’ members were taken care of should they find themselves in harm’s way.

Linked in technology, philosophy and a cooperative spirit, the cuasterisk.com network partners in Michigan, South Dakota, and Washington worked with CU*SOUTH to shore up their plans and batten down the technology so the CUSO could continue to seamlessly care for its credit union clients located throughout the eastern part of the U.S.

The Client Service teams at CU*Answers and CU*NorthWest already swap phone coverage periodically for staff meetings or to beef up staffing levels, so providing CU*SOUTH clients with seamless customer service was as easy as a few simple phone adjustments.

As further preparation, during the weekend prior to the storm, rollover and connectivity tests were performed to ensure that member data for CU*SOUTH’s thirteen client credit unions would be available, accessible and operational if the storm took a turn and knocked the Mobile site out of commission.  Testing confirmed the team at Site-Four was ready, and CU*NorthWest, who has been sharing operations with their southern counterpart for a little more than a month, was prepared to take over on a moment’s notice if needed.

“I’ve been supporting credit unions on the Gulf Coast since 1983, and have dealt with direct strikes or near misses from at least 15 hurricanes,” said CEO Leo Vaulin.  “Never before have I felt so well-protected by the combination of robust planning and partnership support through our network.  I appreciate it deeply, especially the last-minute roll-testing on Sunday with Site-Four, the support from the Client Service teams at both CU*Answers and CU*NorthWest, and the support from Network Services getting us squared away with the router changes and EFT backhaul required for the roll test, and the phone changes to roll CU*SOUTH’s client calls to CU*Answers and CU*NorthWest.”

Site-Four, CU*Answers, CU*NorthWest and CU*SOUTH are all part of the cuasterisk.com network of companies that operate the credit union software toolkit CU*BASE^®.   Luckily, this time Mobile, Alabama, was not directly in the eye of the storm, but this event was a strong confirmation that the cuasterisk.com network is prepared to take on even Mother Nature.