MADISON, Wis. – It's been nearly 14 years since Robert “Bob” Davis left his post as director of CUNA's state government affairs department and while the hub of regulatory action has since grown into a well-oiled, legislative tracking machine, the early days saw doing more with less. “We had to campaign hard for certain things, it was our job to get the grassroots of the movement enthused,” Davis recalled. Davis, 76, worked for six years at the Illinois Credit Union League before being recruited by CUNA's General Counsel to set up the association's state affairs department. While there, he countered anti-growth attacks by the American Bankers Association on “vulnerable states” with a league campaign that “stirred up” credit union managers to fight back. He also spearheaded the “Save our Share Draft” campaign when a Supreme Court decision threatened to end that credit union staple. After he retired from CUNA in 1987, the Chicago native worked on consulting projects including with CUNA, helping the Arizona Credit Union League revise their credit union law and testifying in Ottawa before banking officials on truth and lending regulations. He even wrote the mayor of Madison to ask about job openings in his office. Davis didn't hear back right away but eventually the mayor did call him asking if he would be interested in serving on the city's senior citizens advisory council. Appointed in 1995, he put back on his campaign hat and drummed up funding for private agencies that assisted the elderly and disabled. In 2001, Davis was elected vice chair of the council and a “complete role reversal” occurred with the new position. “The acting chair told me the mayor has a television program and she wanted me to appear on a segment with the mayor,” Davis said. “I was the one asking questions. This, coming from someone who once wrote sat in the background taking minutes.” While the role has allowed him to relive his campaigning days, Davis said he will not seek reappointment and has in fact, “urged them to elect someone else in 2004.” “There's always a need for new blood in any organization,” he explained. He also serves on the board of a local foundation that raises money for “civil action” causes, doing double duty as the foundation's newsletter editor and interviewing people that often go unheard such as struggling artists and homeless teens, Davis said. Building Credit Unions Worldwide After a stint with the U.S. Census Bureau, Davis got an invitation from the World Council of Credit Unions to join a fact-finding team on a mission to Poland to determine the feasibility of building credit unions there. The 13-member delegation spent a month there meeting with workers cooperatives, labor unions, bankers and farmers. “We went to Warsaw to visit the Parliament and somehow, some area farmers heard we were there trying to build credit unions,” Davis recalled. “They were concerned that we would overlook the agricultural co-ops.” As the legislative regulatory expert, Davis recommended to credit union supporters to look at the existing regulations, input necessary changes and go back to Parliament in three years to try to get laws passed to develop credit unions. Davis went back to Madison, wrote a report on the trip and got news a few years later that some of the proposed credit union legislation were indeed passed into law. “Poland has a flourishing movement today,” Davis said. In 1991, WOCCU called on Davis again to pen a model legislation program that would be used in Hong Kong and such African countries as Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Liberia. Tragically, six months after a visit to Liberia to meet with officials who were eager to get a cooperative movement underway, many of those officials were killed under circumstances to this day that aren't clear, Davis said. The model legislation program written by Davis was so applicable that WOCCU commissioned him and an advisory team to write the International Digest of Laws Governing Credit Unions, first published in 1993. The digest has since been updated every two years and as recent as 2002, David Grace, WOCCU's financial and regulatory affairs manager, called on Davis' expertise to contribute updates. “The level of interest overseas is overwhelming,” Davis said. “Many countries are in the midst of successful credit union movements.” Grassroots Builder to Archivist Of all his post-`retirement' pursuits by far, he considers his role as a semi-caregiver for the elderly most gratifying. Davis met Theodore Pierce, a 90-year old African-American man, at a local assisted-living home and the two became instant friends. Pierce's grandmother, who lived to the wise old age of 115, was born into slavery and owned a home that had been in the Pierce family for nearly 100 years. While a young couple would later purchase the home, Davis said the wife took great pains to restore the entire house to the original time period. Pierce had collected a number of pivotal letters and mementos over the century, many tied to his father who worked for five Wisconsin governors. He asked Davis to help him archive the artifacts and Davis sprang into action. He first called a reporter at the local newspaper, who came out and interviewed Pierce. Then, Davis took on the careful task of archiving Pierce's memories. Those pieces of Madison's history are now housed at the Wisconsin State Historical Society. A professor of Black studies at a local university read the newspaper article on Pierce and immediately arranged an interview. In the midst of writing a book on the restrictions placed on African-American musicians and singers who performed in Madison during the 1920s and 1930s, she knew Pierce would be an ideal source, Davis said. Pierce died in 1999, but the memory of their friendship lives on. “He taught me that life is four things – a game, a battle, a search and a dream,” Davis explained. “Life can be a combination of any of these things at one time depending on the direction you turn.” Davis' compass led him fresh out of Loyola University to work in the personnel department for a federal agency. A coworker told him that the Illinois Credit Union League had an advertisement for someone to head up the public relations and education programs. As a reporter for the Army newspaper while stationed in Manila, Davis had a number of clips to show for. So, with articles in hand, he met with the league's CEO. Turns out that the CEO was a former editor and needless to say, Davis got the job in 1955. While at the league, he did public relations and set up education and training workshops for Illinois' 1,000 credit unions. “The big issue at the time was the start of the share insurance fund,” Davis said. “The league was instrumental in providing support in getting the backing from the government to get it up and running.” Six years later he would head CUNA's state affairs department. Besides coordinating hearings with leagues across the nation to shore up muscle for the then pending revision of the federal credit union law in the 1970s, Davis created a record of the hearings' minutes (“my secretary transcribed all of them”) for distribution to CUNA staff to discern what the most pressing legislative needs were. That federal law would eventually be recodified, a first for legislation that up until then, only saw piecemeal changes. Davis also read through piles of bills, summarized them and published the digest in the State Legislative Report, an insider newsletter for state leagues. His department assisted states with smaller leagues that didn't have the staff to fend off bankers. “We would step in and help them, testified on their behalf if they asked for that,” Davis said. The decision to retire from CUNA came on strong footing. An avid cyclist – he rides for 6 miles every other day – Davis likes the pace his life has taken. “I wanted to retire at a time when I could still hit the high notes,” he said. “Things were going so well at that point. The (state government affairs) function had moved to D.C. It was time.” Friends wanting to get in touch with Bob Davis, can reach him in Madison, Wis. at (608) 244-3351. -

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