Boeing shifting market strategy

SEATTLE – The $4.3 billion Boeing Employees Credit Union (BECU) does not plan to open new branches in other cities as it shifts into serving a state-wide field of membership, but will stick with express service centers, of which it already has seven, and is looking into shared branching, according to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The 316,000-plus member credit union, 30% of whom are Boeing employees, decided to make the shift after concluding that Boeing’s days of being among the biggest employers in the region were over. “The board said, `We don’t think Boeing will ever be the dominant employer in Puget Sound that it has been; the number of employees will not build up to the levels’ previously seen,’ ” BECU CEO Gary Oakland told the paper. “ We’re not going to go out and open branches in Spokane,” Oakland said. “We’ll work it like ripples in a pond from where our brand recognition is strongest,” he told the paper.