Q & A with Mark Brennan, Clearview FCU

CUNA HR/TD Council
September 20, 2010 | COMMENTS

Mark Brennan, formerly the VP of HR and Training at US Airways FCU, has become president and CEO of the same organization effective October 1. Lots of changes are happening. In addition to a new CEO, US Airways FCU has been awarded a community charter and has changed its name to Clearview Federal Credit Union. Clearview is also planning on opening three new branch offices in southwestern Pennsylvania. Mark has been a member of the CUNA Human Resources/Training and Development Council since 1993.

Why did US Airways go after the community charter, Mark?

Before we were pretty much a single sponsor with US Airways, as well as several SEG groups included in our FOM. The economic hardships the airlines have been suffering, and the layoffs, have led to a downturn in our potential field of membership. The charter will allow us to expand into a 10-county area in southwestern Pennsylvania with a potential membership base of 2.7 million.

What will your duties be now, as president and CEO?

My entire background has been in HR training and I've done a lot of strategic development and leadership development since I joined the company in 1991. Now as president my role will be to provide direction and vision to our business plan, as well as strategic positioning of our credit union for future growth.

Isn't it unusual for the president and CEO to have a background in HR?

Yes, it is. Most presidents come from the ranks of CFOs or Operations. Our board of directors was looking for someone with strong people skills to take us forward into our new charter. People skills are one of the most important things a CEO needs for bringing people together, putting the right people in the right positions, and dealing with new communities.

Even though I had an HR title, much of my work was in strategic planning and leadership development. In fact, our former president/CEO has developed members of our executive leadership team to take on the role of president.

How's the community charter process been going?

It is a new experience for all of us! We have excellent services and products and employees, and that's a great start. Now we are going to be working in a new field of membership and trying to establish our niche within these communities. We will also be marketing our member business services and indirect lending services heavily in these underserved areas-just as importantly, we are assuring our current members that these changes will not affect the benefits they are now receiving with our credit union.

We wanted to make sure our members weren't confused by our plans to expand, or our name change. We came up with the marketing tag line of "80,000 names and only one is changing," meaning that the only change our 80,000 members will see is our new name. And we're getting a lot of positive support from our existing members. Is the community charter process very complicated?

We started last December, filing our first paperwork with the NCUA. There is a lot of paperwork involved. We have three binders that are each eight inches thick, full of paperwork. We worked very closely with the Division of Insurance at the NCUA to make sure our paperwork satisfied their requirements. A business plan was necessary-the NCUA looks quite carefully at how you propose to serve the underserved communities. There were some requests for additional information, which we were able to provide. We received our approval on September 23, so the whole process took about ten months.

Are you staying on as a member of the council?

I will remain a member of the council until the end of the year, when our director of human resources, Sydney Manning, will become a member of the CUNA HR Council.

The CUNA Human Resources and Training and Development Council is a very valuable tool. It's great to talk to other people who experience the same lows and the same highs. Credit union folks are not shy about helping each other out, and I think we all want other credit unions to succeed. I rarely saw this openness and sharing of ideas when I worked in the airline industry or academia.

What are the most pressing HR issues facing credit unions today?

The biggest one is that we are moving toward a sales culture. The challenge is getting employees to buy into the culture of sales and service-this is a shift for credit unions.

The second key issue is maintaining appropriate salary and benefits programs. There are only so many dollars in the budget, and it gets tougher every year for HR to keep these programs competitive.