BATON ROUGE, La. — Neighbors' Federal Credit Union spent a week furthering the education of its employees.The credit union celebrated Employee Learning Week, which was declared by Gov. Bobby Jindal and the American Society for Training and Development. The week was declared nationwide to increase awareness about the value of learning."Neighbors' FCU is committed to building the knowledge base of our employees, and for us to solidify the trust our employees place in us by helping them become more knowledgeable individuals," said Kathi M. Gill, Neighbors' president/CEO.The credit union's training department treated employees to activities that included visiting each of its seven branches to showcase Neighbors' new learning management systems, providing information about leadership, learning and development opportunities and having share book lists available for the Neighbors' library.A learning tip of the day was also e-mailed to all employees. Employees also collectively read The Simple Truths of Service and had open discussions about what they learned.–[email protected]

More Ponzi Schemes

WASHINGTON — Two more Ponzi schemes have been discovered by the Securities and Exchange Commission a little over a month after Bernard L. Madoff's $50 billion investment pyramid was exposed.On Jan. 8, the SEC charged Joseph S. Forte of Broomall, Pa., with fraudulently obtaining an estimated $50 million from as many as 80 investors through the sale of securities in the form of limited partnership interests in his firm, Joseph Forte LP. Forte told investors that he would invest the funds in an account that would trade in securities futures contracts. He consistently lost money in the limited trading that he did, withdrew millions of dollars in so-called fees for his personal use based on the falsely inflated value of Forte LP, the SEC said.The commission also said on Dec. 30 it filed an emergency action to halt a $23 million Ponzi scheme and affinity fraud conducted by Creative Capital Consortium LLC, A Creative Capital Concept$ LLC and its principal, George L. Theodule. The scheme, targeted mostly at Haitian-Americans.Theodule commingled investor funds with his personal funds and misappropriated at least $3.8 million for himself and his family, the SEC said.–[email protected]