WASHINGTON - Dollar Associates officially opened for business on Monday. Following their six-and-a-half year run at NCUA, former Chairman Dennis Dollar and his former Chief of Staff Kirk Cuevas have formed a business partnership. Dollar explained that the question "was not how you're going to enjoy yourself after a job like that, but how you're going to support yourself after a job like that." Evaluating their options took the bulk of their time over the two weeks before Dollar and Cuevas made the decision to strike out on their own. "We did weigh out a number of options both inside and outside the industry and really evaluated the possibilities. We decided we wanted to stay within the [credit union] industry if at all possible," Dollar said. Dollar Associates will work with credit unions and related organizations to help them with compliance regulations and get it right. The consulting firm will aid credit unions with anything from preparing a community charter application to adopting an underserved area to evaluating potential products. Dollar explained that they could also help vendors decide if a product is for the credit union industry. "Credit unions would be very well served with our background," he said. Though "there is a little bit of apprehension with any new change," Cuevas said his feels confident and that he could not have picked a better business partner. Starting a business has been a dream of both Dollar and Cuevas. Dollar said they realize it is going to mean a lot of travel and hard work, but he added, "Not only are we not afraid of that, we're used to that." Even though they had not officially opened for business yet, Dollar said their phones were already ringing last week. He added that they have put out some calls as well to a few key players in the credit union community and that Dollar Associates has developed a brochure to mail out. Check out the Web site operational this week at www.dollarassociates.com. "The response has been very reassuring that this has been the right move," Cuevas said. Initially, the business will only employ Dollar and Cuevas who are currently working out of their homes in Northern Virginia while they look for office space. Eventually, Dollar said he would like to have additional employees and a satellite office down South, "closer to home." As a former senior appointee at NCUA, Dollar is restricted from directly lobbying NCUA for a year. Cuevas' limitations are not so strict. After one year, Dollar will be able to lobby NCUA on anything he did not specifically work on during his tenure at the agency; broad topics like field of membership and member business lending would be fair game but not, for example, a specific conservatorship. Dollar's background in credit unions includes six-and-a-half years on the NCUA Board with three of those as chairman. Immediately prior to that, from 1991 to 1997, he served as president and CEO of Gulf Coast Community Federal Credit Union, which at the time was Gulfport Veterans Administration Federal Credit Union. Dollar and Cuevas have known each other for over 20 years from Dollar's days in the Mississippi House of Representatives where Cuevas was his page. Their first professional work together came at NCUA. Cuevas served as Dollar's executive assistant and as his chief of staff when Dollar became chairman at NCUA. Prior to that, he was an attorney with State Farm Insurance. [email protected]