Nolan, staying with the industry he believes in

The professional career of NAFCU Services Corporation President Keith Nolan started out with VISA. He spent four years in operations at VISA, and three years in marketing and sales. Nolan then entered the CU industry by joining Payment Systems for Credit Unions in 1989 as senior vice president, Eastern regional director. He was based in PSCU’s Herndon, Va. office. He eventually became executive vice president and chief marketing officer of PSCU. While Nolan was a rising star with PSCU, issues close to home kept him from staying with PSCU. “When Dave (Serlo, president of PSCU) asked me to move down to the Tampa area, I had to choose between what looked like a very promising career and what my family’s wants were,” said Nolan. Family won out and Nolan stayed in the Northern Virginia vicinity, eventually taking a job as vice president and national sales director of the now defunct CU portal provider, Members-Resources.com. “When I left PSCU during the five months before the MembersResources job, one of my biggest challenges was explaining to employers what the credit union industry was all about,” said Nolan. He said he was getting pigeon-holed as only “a credit union guy.” With an industry that’s not well known, it was tough using his CU experience to get a job outside of the industry. “Half the time people would say `what the heck is a credit union?’ It was frustrating.” Nolan believes if you can sell to credit unions, you can sell to anyone. “It’s one of the toughest markets to sell too. I think they are very much a closed network. There are a lot of credit union committees to get through, there are committees within committees. If you can get some of the larger credit unions on board, there’s a strong following after that. Nolan is a graduate of James Madison University and the American Bankers Association School of Bankcard Management at the University of Oklahoma.