SANTA ANA, Calif. — The $7.5 billion Orange County Teachers FCU has a new name: SchoolsFirst FCU.
The name change, effective April 1, has been nearly five years in the making, said Jose Lara, senior vice president, organizational planning and development. Because SchoolsFirst serves districts located outside Orange County, the previous name was geographically limiting. And, he said, the word "teachers" made membership eligibility confusing for district employees outside the classroom.
Because SchoolsFirst is spelled as one word, the credit union is also able to copyright it, which is an additional benefit, Lara said.
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"When we went through the process of selecting a name, we wanted to make sure it's inclusive of our membership, not geographically constraining, and we wanted to stay away from a made-up word," he said.
The new name and logo are the only things changing at the largest school employee-based credit union in the country, Lara stressed. SchoolsFirst will retain its existing field of membership–school employees and their families in 10 Southern California counties–and isn't planning a new aggressive growth strategy.
Despite the official NCUA date of April 1, SchoolsFirst hung on to its OCTFCU branding until April 2, to avoid confusion on the practical joke holiday. However, Lara estimated two-thirds of his membership were already aware of the new name following February meetings with district superintendents, 137,000 letters to school employee members, in-branch materials and last week's notice on the credit union's Web site.
SchoolsFirst also prepared an extensive cue sheet for member-facing staff to help them answer member questions about the change. Lara reported receiving all the usual questions, like suspicions of a merger or takeover, but said members have accepted the name change, provided service levels remain high.
"There's two ways you can do this sort of thing, either spring it on people or let them know about it ahead of time," Lara said. "If you let them know, you run the risk of the information getting out before you might be ready. But we didn't want anyone to come to a branch and be surprised, so we've been very methodical about the roll out."
The credit union will still honor its 74-year history in Orange County by adding the tagline "serving school employees as OCTFCU since 1934″ to its new branding.
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