Maintaining he is leaving the industry in solid hands but "with a hole in my heart," the outgoing chairman of CUNA, Kris Mecham of Utah, said Wednesday he departs next month for Mongolia with knowledge that CUs seem well prepared to handle various legislative crises whether it be the corporate bailout, member business lending, secondary capital or interchange.

The CUNA head and retiring president/CEO of the $454 million Deseret First FCU of Salt Lake City said also that while the industry needs to speak with one voice too much talk and energy is being devoted to the discussion of potential CUNA/NAFCU consolidation.

"We're spending too much time dealing with that issue when the fact is we are represented well in Washington," said Mecham maintaining he and others in CUNA "have worked together well" with NAFCU leaders in recent months, becoming effective in such areas as secondary capital, and corporate stabilization.

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to CUTimes.com, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited CUTimes.com content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking credit union news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Shared Accounts podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical coverage of the commercial real estate and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, GlobeSt.com and ThinkAdvisor.com
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.