Tippets: Single sponsors now in `a changing universe'

DALLAS – Single sponsor credit unions “juggle variations” of separation from their parent all the time and the decision by Motorola Employees Credit Union of Scottsdale, Ariz. to go that route is another example “of a changing universe,” according to John Tippets, president and CEO of American Airlines Credit Union here. Tippets is a spokesman for the Single Sponsor Group, a 10-year-old ad hoc organization which met last April to review some of those “variations” as single sponsors pursue new SEGs, relocate off-premise branches or try FOM family expansions. The American Airlines CU exec said he was notified earlier this year of Motorola’s plans by Daniel F. Desmond, its president and CEO who also had been active in the Single Sponsor Group. Desmond told Credit Union Times last week he will “in all likelihood” have to resign from the group. Because of a schedule conflict, Desmond said he missed the April meeting which had 30 attendees out of 50 that were invited. Tippets said a fall meeting of SSG is planned in Atlanta, but “I don’t have the date yet.” He added that the sponsoring CU usually decides that. The host CU for the fall meeting, he said, is Coca-Cola Family Federal Credit Union.