A Message from MECU’s Chairman and President & CEO

Education is the key to being successful. To ensure that MECU provides the best for our members we are committed to providing education, for our employees, for our community and most importantly, for our members.

Because MECU has grown, we have investigated ways to train all our employees at all the locations at the same time to ensure a consistent message. We came up with two excellent methods. The first is an interactive video-conferencing system that lets us have an expert outside of MECU share their knowledge with everyone, and lets all employees, no matter their location; ask questions so they thoroughly understand the information.

The second method is the development of MECU's Knowledge Team. The Knowledge Team is a group of employees that volunteered to go through extensive training on topics that all employees need to know, such as the products that MECU offers its members. After their training, the members of the knowledge team hold training sessions with different groups of employees.

Education, especially financial education, is an important part of MECU's outreach to the community. We have worked with the CollegeBound Foundation to help ensure that the students they work with are ready to go to college and succeed. This year, MECU provided grants for ten students through CollegeBound, but more important is the time that a number of our staff contributes to meet with all the students to provide them with financial literacy training.

MECU also brings in a group of interns every year to work in different departments. This program exposes college students to the credit union industry, so we can attract the best and the brightest to be the future leaders of MECU and other credit unions. And the program works. Here at MECU, many of the summer interns continue their internship into the academic year. And every year several of those interns join MECU as full-time employees.

We promote all this education to benefit our members. But we also want our members to develop their own financial knowledge in order to achieve the goals and dreams they have for themselves and their families. We regularly host workshops to help members better understand their credit and to help prepare them to buy a home. We also provide free financial counseling through Accel and Consumer Credit Counseling Services, which encourages our members to work one on one with a certified counselor on a variety of financial areas including planning a budget to rebuilding credit.

MECU is committed to continuing to provide education in all three of these areas. We know that knowledge builds a better staff, a stronger community and a membership that can dream but also has the knowledge to achieve those dreams.

Herman Williams, Jr.
Chairman of the Board