Often, when I read Mike Welch's column, I am offended enough to take pause, but this time I'm actually taking the time to write about it. It seems that Welch's assessment of credit union marketing departments (CU Times, June 25) is firmly rooted in the 1970s. Please allow me to set the record straight. In the past, Welch has condescendingly chastised marketers for not being strategic enough. Some of us poor country bumpkins are implementing multi-million dollar CRM programs, building predictive models for consumer buying behavior, and performing back-end analytics that used to be relegated to statisticians with coke-bottle glasses. What's more, some of us have MBAs and staffs of similarly-educated professionals who object to Welch's "maybe one day you can do something more compelling than write a newsletter" tone. In the June 25 issue, Welch stated, "Even the best marketers are not good at public relations." Excuse me? My undergrad degree (and first three years of work experience) is in communications/public relations, so I beg to differ. Sure, in the intervening 12 years, I've focused on marketing, but I've always retained PR as a skill set. Welch's propensity to paint all marketers and credit union marketing departments with the same brush is patently offensive. We are as differentiated as the members we serve and deserve to be recognized as such. I would hope that he would display some journalistic objectivity in future articles. Caroline Willard Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Planning American First Credit Union La Habra, Calif.