From Politics to People: Jacob Barkel on Serving Members and Strengthening Communities

In this episode of The CUllaborative, we sit down with Jacob Barkel from Best Financial Credit Union to talk about what it really means to put members first. Jacob shares his journey of changing careers—from politics to credit unions—and why the move felt like the right fit almost immediately. We explore how he started his new career running by competing in the MCUL's 2025 Spark Tank Competition and what he learned from it. 

Jacob also reflects on what motivates him day‑to‑day, how credit unions can show up authentically for their members, and why meaningful work matters—especially for young professionals finding their place in the industry. It’s an honest, thoughtful look at career pivots, community impact, and the people powering credit unions forward.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Collaborative, the podcast for young professionals in Michigan's credit union world who are out here trying to connect, grow, and basically take over the cooperative finance universe one episode at a time. As always, we're powered by Fuel Michigan because even podcasts need hype squads. Whether you're tuning in on your commute at your desk pretending to look very productive, or with a cup of coffee that may or not be your second or your third, I'm just really glad you're here. I'm your host, Camille, and joining us today is Jacob Barkerel from Best Financial Credit Union. Jacob brings a fresh perspective shaped by his experience in political science, curiosity, and a genuine passion for growth within the industry. We'll talk about his career journey, what's motivated him along the way, his experience in the first ever Spark Tank competition, and what comes next for him. Let's get started. So welcome. Thank you for joining, and thank you for agreeing to talk to me. Because I was really excited. Especially with Spark Tank coming up, I wanted to talk to the Raining Moon chapter Spark Tank winner. Before we really get started, I want to hear your credit union journey because admittedly, I don't really know you. I know of you. I've talked to you a few times in our little sphere, and I know you from staff. And tell me about your journey in the credit union industry and how did you find yourself where you are today?

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Yeah, yeah, thank you for inviting me to join you. I was very touched when I got your email, and I thought, wow, that's really special. Yeah, so I didn't didn't envision myself necessarily in the credit union space. Um, as I've heard many people say, I actually started in political science and I did campaign, campaign finance, campaign management. I worked for a couple different ones. I did Roger Victory for State Senate. I worked for the Matt Long John for Congress campaign. Um, I was up in Traverse City for a little while. And yeah, I got around through that and then eventually got to the point where I really just wasn't happy with it anymore. It wasn't the kind of work that made me excited. See, my my dream job has always been the one where I get to wake up and help people make someone's life just a little better. And I I wanted something where I could also supply measurable results, if that makes sense. Measurable results of improvement for the people in my community, state, country, world. Um, and so it it I went back to school and I had a professor say to me that I should try to kind of get my feet wet because I I study economics and philosophy. And he said, try working at a credit union for a little bit. It's finance, it's it's pretty easy entry, and I think you'll enjoy that. You'll get to see a little bit of the day-to-day of not only the people's lives who participate in our economy and what their livelihood looks like, what kind of problems they face daily. But on top of that, I think that you'll like it, that you'll fit in with the credit union a lot more than you would with the bank. And he was pretty spot on with that. He really, he really gave me a soul read because I knew that I was in the right industry, in the right place where I belonged. On actually, it was my first day. I was doing onboarding, and at best, we like the second person you talk to is the CEO. You sit down with Morgan Rascola, and she talks to you about the credit union and their philosophy and answers any questions you might have.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Yeah, no, it's incredible. It's a very unique experience. And I sat with her and I kind of asked her about, you know, what we do here, and you know, how wouldn't like what the difference between the credit union and a bank was, and how she knew this was the right place for her and what what I could focus on to improve. And she said the most important thing, or one of the most important things that you're going to focus on here, or want to focus on here to know that you're in the right place, is that you want to take time to meet the members' needs. There are going to be people who come in with struggles, and you want to help meet those needs before you focus on something like uh return on investment or return on asset. You know, we we have to think about those things because we have to keep the lights on somehow. But ultimately, what we're here for is if Susie doesn't have a car and she needs one to get to work, and she has an account with us and has for a long time, and she needs a loan, she needs this vehicle, we can help her find something that's within her budget. We have all sorts of resources on our website, we have resources through our MSRs. We can help her get to where she needs to be. We can find a realistic solution for her, and we can help. And that is what you need to be thinking about is how can I best help these people? Not how can I best improve our return on investment in all of the loans that we do. And of course, that is a byproduct of what we do, is you want to think about okay, improving that to earn more, to offer more solutions in the future, better solutions, but truly, that is a byproduct of helping people that will come with doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

And I love it as feel, I don't know, maybe because I've watched my mom as a single mom struggle that credit unions are more apt to do that. And just because they have a lower credit score doesn't mean they're not gonna pay. Like, why are we penalizing? So I agree to that. It's a great way to look at it. And I I knew you had some political policies background. I just kind of forgot the extent of it because we talked briefly about it at Hype the Hill. So, with with that, because you were in that sphere, is that an advocacy? Is that something that you're bringing together or try to keep it a little separate?

unknown 6:11

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

How do you feel about it?

SPEAKER_02 6:13

I am very happy and excited to get into crediting and advocacy. Um, that is something that is advocacy in general is meaningful to me, and I still do enjoy a part of political science. I think the part for me was doing it every day really just does, it really takes a toll on your soul. It's brutal. It just I couldn't do it. As much as I wanted to. It really is. If if you get tired of hearing bad news every day, get ready to hear bad news, but it's not just on this like kind of gloom and doom national scale, it is happening to people in your community coming forward and talking to you about this stuff, and then oftentimes you'll have a situation where there is just nothing you can do for them, right? Where there is um serious kind of deadlock, even at the local scale. Although most of the time, I'll say 99% of everybody in your local government doesn't want issues, they want to work and figure something out. But even at that level, you know, emotions can boil up and people feel strongly about what you might think are small things, and it just gets really exhausting. But I think with credit unions, there's this special case where advocacy is easy. I think that it's not hard to sell the purpose of credit unions and the benefit, the net positive we bring to society, to any representative on any side of the aisle, no matter how they feel, even if they get large donations from banks every year. I think it's pretty easy to say, hey, yeah, this credit union in your area, I know there is one, is giving away thousands of dollars every week, just making people in your area's lives better. And without them, your job is going to become harder. It's you can show clear data for that that it's not hard to show to any one of them. And then when we do stuff like Hype the Hill or Hike the Hill for DC, it is also not hard to make those same points when they see, oh wow, there are hundreds of people from all sorts of credit unions, or in Hike the Hill's case, thousands of people showing up and doing this advocacy.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

I think that's a good way of looking at it is it's a little bit more local to them. Whereas banks, I also think that we're kind of in a unique position because right now trying to say this in the best way. The political climate is very divided. It's very like you're either this or you're this, and there's no in-between. And what I like about the credit union advocacy is they put that aside. We put it aside. We don't care at what normally you what side you take. We just want you to hear our story and we want to advocate for them. And we're not gonna pick a left or a right side, we're gonna just gonna pick who's gonna be best for our members, and I think that's important, general.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah, that's awesome. You can you can tell that you know Justin Bamberg, because that is that sounds a lot like something he would say.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

And you know, I didn't get that from him. That was all me.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Yeah, good job, good job.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Maybe he got it from you. Maybe, who knows? So you've you transitioned over into that, and then how long have you been in the credit union world?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

I'm in the credit union space. This I started December 2nd at best uh in 2025 or 2024. Okay. And so I've been there for like a year and four months, a year and almost five. I guess yesterday makes a year and five months. That's messed up. I was like, Wick, it's it's just such an easy job to wake up to and show up to every day. Uh, I'm now our operations and support specialist. Um and so it's it's amazing. It really is. I'm so grateful for all the opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

It goes by fast. I came up on my eight-year anniversary in February, and I was like, eight years, really? It's been that long.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

That's amazing. Congratulations. My manager was just telling me about how she's almost at 10 and she can't believe it. Like it really does, it slips through your fingers.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

When you enjoy an industry and you I mean, every job has their challenges. Every day you're gonna have a day where you're like, why do I do this? But when you're in an industry that you genuinely love, I I love my industry, I love compliance, which sounds weird to a lot of people, it goes by pretty fast. So welcome. And then not only so a year and five months, you were the tick tock the millennial, and the the tick-tock noises that get stuck in my head that just a baby, yeah, just a little baby to credit, you need space, and then you did spark tank. I I was seven years tenured, and I was like, I'm nervous out of my skin. You did it that and you won moon jelly brain blown. What was that all like? You're just like you're new to the industry, and you just decide, oh, I'm gonna do spark tank. Talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Oh, I I agree with you actually. It was weird. Funny, funny story about that.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Not weird, it was brave. Let me say that.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

I guess I guess it was in a way. So, what happened really was um our executive team uh announced the Spark Tank. I think my second day, I want to say it was Wednesday, December 3rd. We did a uh all staff meeting. Uh, I was brand new and I got on meeting the beginning of the morning, and Morgan talked about Spark Tank and how we were gonna choose somebody to be our Spark Tank speaker and how she wanted people to participate and try out for it. And what I had assumed was that meant that everybody had to do this. If you were under 40, everybody had to try out for Spark Tank. So here I am, just as you said, just a baby, and I am trying to figure out okay, there's this new industry. I have no idea about anything about what we do, how it all works, but it was actually perfect because it really inspired me to ask a lot of tough questions, and I very quickly had to learn a lot about the industry, and I was asking about how our rewards checking accounts work, like where does that money come from? How do we earn it? How do we pay it back? What is and how does interchange work and all of these things because you that you just don't normally think about. And I wound up building a project and then presenting, and uh come to find out there were only two of us at best that did one, and I was shocked. I was like, what is happening? I had just assumed, and I was at the Spring Lake branch, so I didn't get to see everybody at our larger branch all the time, so I had no idea that this was the case. I thought, you know, out of the five or six people at my branch, I was the only one. But over at Sherman, you know, surely there'd be 10 or 15 of us.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Hey, you guys had more people than we did. It was just me. But like, congratulations, I won our relate.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

This year is just me again. But yeah, uh last year I presented on uh a essentially a rewards account that was meant to help people buy groceries, was ultimately the idea. It was supposed to reward small businesses, locally owned grocery stores, and restaurants. And if you spend money at those businesses, you would get a uh rather high yield like cashback amount every month, and we would do like rewards and hopefully partners, partnerships with those businesses to give out gift cards or goodie baskets or whatever, whatever they wanted to do. Um but I I was passionate about this idea because there's a lot of crazy things about like how expensive it is to buy food, to put food on the table. Kind of like what you're talking about. Like if you're a single mother and you have more than one child to provide for, you're easily looking at at the bare minimum a fifth of your monthly income, more likely closer to a quarter or a third, which is just a ridiculous chunk of your salary to throw at food, a basic necessity that all humans require to exist, to function, to show up to work, to learn, to love, and to play. So I wanted to help ease that pain for my community, and I thought, well, there's a lot of small locally owned grocery stores in like the Muskegon area that nobody knows about.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

And if you want to um buy groceries, most of the time you're going to go to Walmart or Meyer. One in three dollars in the United States of America are spent at Walmart, Walmart alone. And so if you consider all of those dollars, 33% of Americans' grocery money is going to one giant corporation that actively takes place in price gouging practices um and markups and areas where they know you you need this food. They know that okay, eggs are more popular in your area, or perhaps this kind of bread is more popular in your area, or this kind of cheese, or whatever. And they make those products more expensive because they know you're going to buy them and they know that they can cut a little bit more profit out of you. Whereas there's a lot, especially, I have a list of I think 24 just in Muskegon County, um, small locally owned grocery stores that make less than a million dollars a year, and a lot of them are from like immigrant-uned, right? So a lot of them are like Korean themed or like Mesoamerican themed, or uh you'll even see, I think there were a couple that were like traditional, like Greek kind of cuisine, and you see a lot of those or uh I think there's a Taiwanese place as well. There's there's a couple grocery stores that they don't make a lot of money, but they provide specific goods that you could implement in your weekly dietary routine, and it would benefit your small community because the more you buy from these places, especially if you like own a restaurant or something, if you are getting your supply from say a local farmer or any other local kind of goods provider, or if you're buying maybe your cutlery from a local establishment, then far more of those dollars are going to circulate back in your community. I don't remember the exact statistic, but it I remember it was quite absurd, where I want to say it was like if you spent at a large corporation and such as McDonald's or Walmart, then it was something like less than five percent of those funds would go back to your community. But if you spent at a locally owned establishment, then a little over 40% of those funds circulate back through your community.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

It's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

It really is. You're providing jobs to people because if you buy local, the people you're buying local from are buying their goods locally most of the time and not from large chains. So you you make a huge difference, and that money is likely coming back to your wallet or your neighbor's wallet one way or another.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

I like that. I I love that you compile the list of all the local stores. I am partial to Valley Asian Mart on Apple. I love her, she is the nicest little woman if you've never been there. I love it. She's my favorite. Um yeah, I felt so unprepared compared to yours because you had all of those statistics. You can definitely like see your background in like all with the political and finding all of the little nuances. And I think it really says something about you that you know you're two, three days on the job, and now here you are asking all of these questions that most people don't even think about. So, like, congratulations, because that's amazing. What else about the experience? Did you so you did you were the semi-file? Yeah, so you did, I remember I don't think I got to see you present because I had to leave the the other people. That's probably so you did like really crammed room.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

I actually wrote a lot about that, yeah, because I made it to the semifinals.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

And I couldn't remember how it was staged.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Yeah, it's it's weird because it's you do your local event, then you do your chapter event, and then there's the semifinals and the finals. And I'll say that this is this is public knowledge, a free tip from yours truly. Anybody who's interested in doing the sparking, you want, especially for the semifinals, a TED talk level presentation. I think. I think you want to feel confident that you could go present this at TED and feel good about it. And you don't have to have the perfect idea, it doesn't have to be perfectly thought out, but you want something that you can speak well about, and if you can do that, I think you'll make it far. I think it was pretty clear that the best speakers were the ones that made it to the semifinals, and then like Kevin Knoll, uh, who won the whole thing, and Eloisa, who got the runner-up. I think they had a combination of the best ideas. They were tuned into the hot button issue, which was AI. They knew that was popular, people wanted to hear about it, and my god, were their presentations amazing. They were so good.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Dude, I was blown away. Kevin's like the fact that they even put it into production or they started using that at consumers. I was just like, I remember watching it and just going, Holy sh like, it was really, I think all of the like I thought they were all great ideas, but those definitely I was just I still I'm kind of I'm excited to see this year too. Me too. I don't even think I don't think Harbor Light has anybody this year. I said no because I was having surgery and I'm still getting caught up and I have the podcast, and they actually approached me and said, Hey, do you want to do it? And I said, I haven't even had time to think of an idea. I can't even tell you what I I had for lunch today, let alone come up with an idea. So I'm excited to see what's gonna happen. Do we get a preview of what you're talking about? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

I will share some of my thoughts. So this year, what I went with is I I started bold because I went off off the bat. I knew that I wasn't gonna do anything uh tech based because the winner and the runner up last year were both tech based, they're both AI, and I felt like we've kind of been there, done that. This has been talked about a lot.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

I want to do something different, and something that's unique to me is the more social aspect of credit unions. It is the services that we provide to members, not the services that we use on the back end to improve ourselves. And I think that those are important, but I don't think it's very me. So I went with this peculiar idea of talking about unions, and I'm using the vehicle of a QSO, a credit union supporting organization. For example, BEFS Financial Credit Union has one. It is our best financial insurance agency. We offer meme insurance specifically for teachers and family members of education and like public school workers. So, like if you're a janitor at a public school or a bus driver, you qualify, we can help you. If anybody wants it, you know, it's it's there anyways. But so we we use that because it's a service or an advantage that we offer to our members. And what I want to do is create a QSO that assists people in the community with finding resources about organizing and unionizing, finding out if that's the right option for you that is actually beneficial compared to the workplace benefits that you're getting now. And I I was sold by this Pew Research Center statistic that was 55% of Americans uh support unions. They believe that unions are a net positive to society. They like them, they want to see them around. Now that doesn't sound like much to anybody who is not a freaking nerd like myself uh and loves numbers, but uh I'll compare that to another.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

It's a majority.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

So 55%.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Even if it's just 50%, it's still a majority.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

It is, it's actually a supermajority considering that um Barack Obama in 2008 uh won the American popular vote at 52 percent. He is one of the most popular presidents in modern history, whether you like him or don't like him, the facts are the facts, he's one of the most popular presidents we've had in a long time. And so the reality is when you have the idea of unions are now more popular today than Barack Obama was in 2008. I think that there's a real position that credit unions can and should set themselves up for if they want to attract new members. And this actually goes up when you consider Gen Z. If you are a gym member of the Gen Z, you are 72% uh likely to support unions. The actual statistic was that they said something along the lines of they believe that unions are essential for the economy, which is crazy. That is a crazy statistic. That is huge. So the way I've kind of angled it is that if you want to attract new Gen Z members outside of just, you know, digitizing further and building a better online banking platform, we should also consider social aspects such as unions and how to position ourselves to attract these members, because ultimately what differentiates credit unions from fintechs and banks is not how well our online banking works. Because at the end of the day, it is going to look just like theirs, work just like theirs, and just have a different font and different colors. What differentiates us is our programs that we provide to the community that that's what makes us special, that's our superpower. And I think that's what we need to kind of hammer home and run with is we are always trying to compare ourselves and compete with banks and fintechs. I hear that at every freaking conference I go to, whether it's the queues or whatever, yeah, somebody's talking about, well, how do we catch up to them? Well, we should be thinking about that, but we also should think about well, what is it that makes us special in the first? And I think that's what it is is social programs like that that bring our community together. If we can help everybody, if the average person in your community has better wages, has better quality of life through their job because they've unionized or because they've had the option to, then you're going to see all kinds of different benefits for your credit union.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah, I like that you're taking something that most people would not think about a credit union having anything to do with, but and really putting it there. And also when you're saying that's just statistics from what I hanging out. I mean, I have little younger cousins that are Gen Z and from what I know, it that tracks. That's some percent statistic. That tracks. I can see that. I think that's I'm excited to see the full presentation because that I like when people can take two things that they're polar opposites and then you can make them work, and you're like, huh, that's actually really cool. So I am looking forward to that.

unknown 26:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

I love that you're playing a lot for it. I um I actually wanted to touch on this a little bit because last year at the semifinals, um I I did learn, I did kind of almost get pushed out of my comfort zone because I think I'm a very comfortable presenter in normal, right? But there was this thing where it's like I was new to the credit union space, although I had won the chapter event and my local best event. At the semifinals at the Spark Tank, both my CEO and my COO came to watch. And like I had presented before them before, and that was no big deal, right? I was I was fine with that. But it turned out that it kind of was in a unique way. So what it really was was that there were all of these other CEOs and COOs and professionals in the room, and that kind of got into my headspace where I hadn't really prepared for this or done something like that before. I had realized this is one of the first times of my life I'd actually presented something to a room of strangers, especially professional strangers. And, you know, mind you, I've I've worked in campaign management, I've spoken in front of tons of volunteers before. I have done some campaign financing, I've raised funds with wealthy individuals, millions of dollars for campaign contributions. And it's it was so bizarre that in this moment I felt so much more intimidated than I ever had before. And it was just simply different from presenting to peers in a class or in front of my friends at my credit union, uh, or uh, you know, friends in my high school or college uh presenting courses. It just was different, and I was dumbfounded by that. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. Um so what wound up happening is I had note cards in my pocket for just in case, and I was so nervous I wound up leaning on those, and I practically stammered through the whole presentation, and they had like a clicker. My my presentation was automatically timed, but that didn't end up working in real time at the event, so I wound up having to use the clicker, and I wasn't ready for that, and I was just so off foot, that's not an excuse, it just like really got to me. And so, in the moment, you know, your anxiety's high, and it's just it's just a different story. So instead of offering some sort of platitude about the experience, instead, I guess I'll offer a bit more of a story into it. So after the presentation was done, and I sat back down at my seat next to Kevin Knoll, who's such a sweetheart, and told me I did a good job before he presented. Thankfully, I went before him and he presented and was a rock star. And yeah, he went and then I was like, Man, I am so cooked.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Um, but yeah, I sat down and I'm out. I think it's been real.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yeah, uh, yeah, it it it really did. It felt like the first time I fell off my bike, like as a little kid, you know, I was like bruised, I scraped my knee, and you know, my my ego was hurt a little bit, and it was it was brutal, but you know, I lived, and a few people did actually help me out too immediately afterwards. It felt like they helped me get back up off the ground and kind of push my bike and move on with it. So once all the finalists were announced and I didn't hear my name, my heart kind of dropped a little bit. I was scared to go face my CEO and my COO who had driven all the way out to support me. And so I like after it was done, I went to go get a drink. But you know, I'm 40 feet tall, so of course they found me pretty easily, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

They can find you anyways.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Yeah, they they did, and I was gonna see them at work the next week, anyways. But the our COO offered some words of encouragement that really touched me because it was this way that you know she smiled and was so genuine with me that it really it really did help me feel a little better. Uh, because she told me that, you know, she was proud that I put myself out there and that I got as far as I did, and that, you know, I was brand new and it was amazing to see just how much I cared. And that that made me feel great because it was, you know, it took away the feeling that I had let anyone down, but it still felt like I failed. And so I started to walk back to my hotel room, and then I was in this kind of like weird, bizarre daze, felt like my ears and eyes were buzzing with this like weird radio silence, and that's when I heard some unfamiliar voice, uh yet eerily familiar, uh, kind of yelling after me as I was walking down the street. And it was none other than Aloisa Medina, who would soon be the semifinalist. And I had recognized her from her presentation, and I, you know, I knew she did great, but I thought it was it was so bizarre that she was stopping me, and you know, I wanted to congratulate her on doing well, and uh, you know, it she it was it was well deserved, but uh she wound up telling me that uh she loved that it was like thoughtful and caring about like members and it wasn't in a similar direction as a lot of the other contestants, and you know, if I had just maybe rehearsed it better or calmed my nerves a little better, uh she thinks I would have done uh and presented a much in a much better manner. And I was like, wow, that was really that was really truly so nice. She did not have to do that at all, especially after you just won and are now going to the finals. I don't think you see that very often. And then I'm going up to my hotel room, and just before I get on the elevator, another person yells out to me, and it's Anthony Saban. He I want to say it's something star credit union. I I remember he's a manager there. Um, but he was also a semifinalist, and he uh was a really nice guy and he had a cool charity presentation. Um but he also wanted to stop and talk to me and tell me that he thought that I I did a good job. And that was so weird to me because I thought I think that my perspective of myself and my presentation was a little warped from what the reality is. And he said that it was it was nice that I presented something that I clearly cared about and that I stayed true to the credit union core philosophy. And I was like, that is that is very nice, and I know this has been a long-winded story, but just talking about you know comfort and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

I just love it.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Yeah, thank you. I think the point that I was getting at is there are always going to be experience that experiences that kind of push us out of our comfort zone, even when you thought you were comfortable. There's going to be times where you're like, man, I didn't really quite have this as much as I thought I did. And I think those experiences are really important, right? I think you should try to push yourself. And I always want to try and keep growing. And I think it's important to fight for you know every centimeter of every inch on your thousand mile journey towards self-improvement. And I think it's important to realize that the end goal, becoming improved or the improvement itself is not necessarily uh the benefit, right? The benefit was the journey. When you become a doc, you are not a doctor because you got the title, you were not the doc a doctor because you got the diploma. You are a doctor because you spent years in med school and you earned all of that knowledge and you spent endless nights working towards it. And I think for me it kind of proves the same thing where, you know, it wasn't gonna be easy. It wasn't something that I should have expected to have even done as well as I did, you know. I couldn't have gotten as far as I did without the support that I had from all of my other co-workers and from everybody at the moon chapter. And, you know, I was I was very lucky and fortunate to be in that position, and I wish that I had, you know, I think that imposter syndrome, it kicks hard.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah, a hundred percent that is I'm glad you got it and not me, but also you did really good and you could see the passion, and it w it was awesome. And then you also got to attend Ace and see what that whole craziness is, uh and and kind of get a taste of more of what fuel's doing. And I see that you're officially in fuel, and how's that going?

SPEAKER_02 35:32

It builds this appreciation for credit union tenacity to solve problems of all sorts of different people, and yeah, I think that's that's a benefit of fuel is recognizing that you know people that you go talk to see different stuff than you, and it's good to learn from okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

It's definitely um something I never thought I'd be a part of, and now I am, and like I actually recognize people and and know people and have this network, and I like the ability to bounce off people and get ideas, and that's kind of how I came up with the idea of the podcast, even was fuel is great, I love it, I wanna help expand it, and how can we make it maybe a little more accessible to people? Because not every credit union can send every single person, and people might mess out. I mean, at Harberly, it's kind of competitive to be one of our fuel people. We have to write a letter of interest, and then they choose. And it is stressful to write that letter of interest and go, why should I be the person? So I was sad not to be like straight up in it this year, but also really glad to watch my coworker go, who's also very like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm very introverted. I'm like, oh honey, you'll be fine. Just have a just jump on in. It'll be great.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

The chapter meeting at WarPont recently.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Yes. So Leah, the short one she has like she's like 4'11. Yeah, she's our trainer. I love Leah, she's fantastic. But yeah, she was there. She she said she was nervous because Andrea, our coworker, couldn't come. And she's like, I have to go alone. Girl, you're fine. They welcome you with open arms. It is it is still intimidating the first time. Even now, even me, like I walk into even the moon chapter events, and I'm like, it's okay. You got this, it's it's fine. Um, what do you think with with all of it, with all that we've talked about, as we evolve, we want to make an impact still. We kind of already talked about that though, but with like your Spark Tank idea, are there any other ideas or uh any other ways you think that we can continue to make an impact? Not, I mean, not necessarily grow, but like how can we stand out just a little bit more? That's the question of the ages.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

I actually thought about this a lot today, and I considered it from both a perspective as how can we remain impactful as credit unions and how can we remain impactful as individuals, right? And I first thought something that's important for me to realize is you know, I'm a philosopher, I like to try and break these things down, and and the first self-evident thing is that I am myself still learning, right? And I need to continue to challenge myself every single day to learn everything I can, right? And as things change, I will likely have to relearn a lot of the stuff that I've learned already, but even that's not going to be enough, right? We should also challenge ourselves to learn why things operate the way they do, and why do you use this specific system? What if we tried it another way? And what can the people who have done all of this before tell me about? And that segues into I recently, just before I got promoted during my interview, I asked our COO, Randy, after I told her that if I could have any position, I'd want her job. Um, what at least you were honest. I was. She said that too. But I said that I asked what she thinks the most important skill is in order to do her job. And can you guess what she said or or fathom I guess for a moment?

SPEAKER_00 39:15

The most important skill to do her job. I'm gonna say either delegate or network in some kind of capacity or like member service. I'm not sure. Those are my two topics.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Those are good. And I I had thought about those myself when I asked the question, but see, when she answered it, she answered it so easily and affluently that I I felt dumb. It was as if the question had an answer so obvious. And all she said was that you need to be flexible, right? She said that there are going to be things that are never going to go exactly to plan. It's going to be like every time.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Case in point, your spark tank presentation didn't go as planned. But you know what? We survived it.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

It comes full circle, it comes full circle, truly. And she said the things are, you know, they're never going to go as planned, but you need to focus on your goal, right? And if you have that goal in mind, as long as you reach that goal, that is what matters. And I love that answer because what she's getting at is that you kind of need to pick your battles and you need to distinguish between what is the war, right? Like what is the end goal, this is what we're trying to achieve, and then what are the small battles that lead up to winning that war. And it's like if you have a goal of you want to close 60 loans this month, right? You want to get 60 new loans at your institution, and you push this to your frontline and your loan officers, but you get a couple negative reviews saying that, hey, it's taking longer to get through line, and maybe you're closing on fewer checking new checking accounts or other services are kind of lagging behind. You need to kind of pick and choose those battles and take a step back and say, okay, this is unfortunate that we've got these, but meet those people where they're at, say, hey, I'm sorry that our service has been below your expectation this month, reach out to them, personalize a response for them, but then also still take a step back and go, wow, we closed 60 new loans this month. That means for the next four years or so, as long as none of them switch to another organization or refinance elsewhere, that is so many more loan dollars we're earning back in interest that we can now look at providing different services for these members. We can look at providing increased personalization. We can maybe improve our app. We can maybe improve our facilities, we can maybe hire another teller or MSR to make things go faster. So it really is about, I think we personally and as credit unions can think about what we can do for people. And I think there's another lesson to kind of learn from game development, right? For board games or video games or whatever. We use game theory every day in finance and economics, right? But there's another social side of that mathematical equation where it's that, so you can make three kinds of games, right? You can make a game that you, the developer, enjoy, you can make a game that your shareholders enjoy, or to say in other ways, going to maximize your return on investment, or you can make a game that the players of your game will enjoy, right? And that's essentially to say that as a credit union, it's our job to step back and ask ourselves, are we prioritizing services that our members enjoy? Or are we enjoying are we prioritizing uh services that are assisting us on our back end? Are they just making it easier for us to get our job done? Which is good. We should think about those things as well. But I think it's important to consider are we doing it for us, are we doing it for them, or are we doing it for the money? I think that if we can go all in on focusing on doing it for them, right? The other things are going to come after. They're going to come in suit. If we are just focusing on how can we maximize profit, or if we're just focusing on how can we maxify maximize efficiency, we are lacking in that how can we maximize member enjoyment? And and that is to say that oftentimes doing those other things happens to benefit the member as well. But I think that there are many times that we need to step back and ask ourselves for example, are you implementing an AI system because your members enjoy using AI? Are you doing it because they enjoy engaging with that system and getting services from AI? Or are you doing it because it's saving you time and possibly saving you money? Right. And not that. Doing that is necessarily bad, but if you answer that question honestly, I don't think that many of us would say that we are making that decision because our members enjoy interacting with the chat a lot, you know? That's true.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

I like it. I think that's a good way to look at it going forward and definitely doing the more social side of it and aspect side of it. Looking back at your long, long tenure in credit unions. Um, is there a moment that kind of I I I ask this of everyone of like, is there a moment that just makes you think, like, yeah, this is this is why I'm here, this is why I do it. Is there multiple, is there one that you want to share or anything specific with that? Because I love hearing those things. I also have a few of them. So like share with us. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

I think especially being member facing, there are there are small victories every day that make me appreciate what I do. I think it is easy to get out of bed and show up in the morning. Um as much as my significant other will say that I grumble and go, I don't want to get up. I'm insane. It you know, when I think about it or when I'm driving into work, I I'm excited, you know, and pumped. On Thursdays, we're there for an extra hour at best. And I love Thursdays because I love to be there for just a little while longer. But to actually answer the question, there was this lady when I was relatively new. I had been there no longer than a month or so, maybe two. Um, and she came in, I'd never seen her before, and she expressed uh immediately that she was nervous to come inside because she was a little late on a couple loans and like her checking was negative.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Um and that's scary. It is, it is, and you know, she was so she was having these financial troubles, and I just from the things that I've seen in the background that I've been through, you know, I I recognized and expressed that, you know, I was thankful that she came in and was able to, you know, uh be brave and show up and say, hey, I need help. And you know, I expressed that I love the people I work with, and we're gonna do everything that we can to assist you and you know, we're gonna help you turn this around. Um she wound up leaving me just the most incredible review, and she it was so thoughtful. She compared coming in initially to coming into the dentist or the doctor's office. How she normally just dreaded it, but this time it was like coming into the dentist and you've got four cavities, right? And she explained how I helped smite those feelings almost immediately by you know being vulnerable with her and expressing that we're here to help. And you know, now she's a regular, she comes in all the time, she's doing great. Uh, she has a new career that she loves, uh, she's building a savings, she's got the rewards checking. We were able to reinstate her checking account after a year, and you know, I'm proud of her. I'll say it outright that I'm I'm proud of this member. And that is probably the first time that I realized like, wow, I really do have the power here to help change lives. You know, I can help people build a brighter future for themselves. And that was like this, you know, really click moment where it came full circle with what Morgan had told me, and what everybody else in our executive team and my management team, and even just my friends and other member-facing co-workers had been telling me. And I was like, wow, this is it's real. It's not all fluff, it's not all just the marketing appeal, is like, oh, we're the good guys, we're not a bank, you know, we're not, we're not Huntington. Yeah. It is we're we can and will help you. It's it's amazing. Um, and I actually brought another like recent really cute survey that I got. I need to print out a nicer version too, maybe hang it up because I I got a lot of nice messages from coworkers about it, which made me feel like I love that.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

I have up here, I have we do stars, and like I have all of my stars. I have a letter of recommendation Justin's wrote me. Like, this is my happy that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

I'm sealing that.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Do it. It literally, if I'm having a bad day and I'm like, why do I do my job? I just sit here and I'll just like that's why.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

Yeah, and I I it's similar, like you take it for granted. It's so easy to take it for granted. Yeah, this one's from a lady who comes in all the time. I see her all the time, and she's so nice, but she filled one out a long time ago and she was like, I never fill one of these out, but you know, Jake does a good job. And it was like, Cool, I got five dollars for that. But then this one it's so so special. I love this lady. He says, at 80 years of age, I make a few trips to my credit. Fortunately, I'm able to do most of my banking via my laptop. However, when I do have banking concerns, I go to Spring Lake's branch. And what I do, I look for that familiar face in the right hand corner. Jake's service is excellent, always friendly, always knowledgeable, always reasserted. Jake is the reason I traveled to Spring Lake's best financial credit union. And I thought that was so nice. And that's another one.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Oh my gosh, that was nothing.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

Just recently go, like, yeah, well, I am in the right place.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

I love that. It definitely shows that you are in the right place and that you just you're empathetic and you have great customer service. And that used to be me, and then I got burned out. But that is that just I love those stories. I I literally could just sit in a room and listen to like a hundred different people tell one great interaction that they had with a member or how they've helped a member or what a member has said, and I'm just like, that makes my heart happy. I love that kind of stuff. I yeah, I can relate to those. Those are I'm so proud of the woman who turned it around too. Like that, it's it's embarrassing. Uh, I've I mean, I recently within the last year had gotten into because of emergency stuff and then pulling out, and it's it's not easy to do that. And you hear people say, like, oh, just budget better. And it's like, a budget can only do so much when you know life is throwing you curveballs and you've got an economy that's kind of going a little wackadoo right now. Like it just so kudos to her for, you know, coming in and being vulnerable and saying, like, hey, I yeah, I messed up. I should say that. One of my favorite things when I was on the line, especially when they would come in and they'd say, Oh my gosh, I'm so I'm not gonna be able to pay my loan on on time. It'll be like a few days late. First of all, it's okay. We have a grace period. You have so many days before we report it as late. And also, we're not a big creditor. Just come talk to us. We'll still allow you to have that. You we have people who are literally so far behind, but you know, they're making small payments out of the direct deposit and they can still have access. We're not gonna take everything away. We just need you to talk to us, just be transparent. And I think human emotion is really complicated because we get embarrassed easy, at least I do. Um, and we don't want to talk about our quote unquote failings. It's okay to need help. And I I love that credit unions, we acknowledge that and say, hey, we get it. Let's let's work together instead of just like, nope, sorry, we're not gonna help you out. No, we're gonna repossess your car. Nope, we're not gonna lend to you. Like it's it's freaking rough out there. And I love I I mean, I I look at all of our loans when they're done, and I love I love it when I see low credit scar score loans because that means we're helping somebody. It's not just somebody with a good credit score that we're giving, like, it's actually somebody that I know we're making a difference, and I love that.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Or even like educating them the right way, saying, you know, your credit score is like really low right now. We can't even maybe legally give you a loan um without um the credit bureaus getting mad at us. But what we can do is we can give you a secured credit card and let's build that up and let's get you alternatives, right? Let's find you um because there are groups out there that do like group carpooling for getting people to work. There are plenty of like not plenty, but there are a few public transportation options that you may be able to take advantage of that you might not have thought of before. And I just I love that we take a second to do those things with people. We have an MSR charity at our Spring Lake Branch, and I will name drop her. She's so good, she is just so good at helping people, and I'll I'll name drop everybody at our Spring Lake Branch, actually. Everybody there is so passionate about improving people's lives, they rarely talk in this negative uh manner. It's always about hey, this person needs this, or like, hey, this person's kind of being um a butt right now, but it's probably coming from a place of they're struggling. So let's hop them out so that they're nice to us so they stop being mean.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

How can we make them nice to us next time?

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Although there are members that no matter what you do, they're not gonna be nice, but that's okay. There are. It is what it is. We I mean, just wait because those are the members that you're gonna. I there's one member, I love her, she's one of my favorites. I hadn't seen her in years because I work remote most of the time now. And it was like my first day back in office since surgery. I was there for like a whole four hours before I had to go home. But I saw her and I went up behind her and said, I don't know if you remember me. She goes, Oh my gosh, Camille, and gave me a hug. I haven't seen you in three years. But like, that's the kind of impact that we make. Are you kidding me? I haven't seen you in three years. But you remember me. And I remember you. And I, I mean, I we have one member who uh it breaks my heart. He is in his 60s. When I was a teller, he started losing his memory. And then when I had gone into MSR, he really started losing his memory. Um, and I, I mean, I sat on the phone with him for with him in my office for over an hour trying to take care of social security before. Um I was with him through his sister getting the conservatorship, like all of this stuff. And he is now in assistant living here in Miskegan. He he thinks his sisters are not who they are. Like he he's just so I watched him decline so fast. I still occasionally, every like three to six months, depending on scheduling, I still email his sister and say, Hey, check it in. Everything good. Just because, you know, those are those are our people. And regardless if you remember me or not, I'm still gonna look out for you. It's what we do. Okay, well, I'm gonna let you get back to your Friday evening. Have a good weekend. Bye.