9/11 had many hitting the roads

North Island Financial CU EVP Retail Delivery & Corporate Planning Geri Dillingham was at a strategic forum for senior executives at Squam Lake, New Hampshire in a lodge with no telephone and no cell phone service when the couple that runs the lodge told the group what was happening. “They had one television in their room and I remember thinking here we are in this incredible remote place where they filmed the movie On Golden Pond, and yet to have this thing happening. So I’m with eight other credit union people and finally we were able to plug in one PC so we e-mailed our credit unions and families but we couldn’t tie up the phone. We were scheduled to fly out the next day so we determined that driving home was the best option. So we drove everyone home across the country in a six-rental car caravan and started off with dropping some people off in Albany, N.Y. then to Cleveland, Ohio, and Southbend, Indiana until we got down to one car with four people from Oregon, Washington and California. So during our four-day `Road Warriors 2001′ caravan across the country we became very close and each came away from that trip with a such a sense of accomplishment that we helped each other get home to our families.”