Dennis Pierce is officially retiring from a long and successful career June 30 as president/CEO of the $2 billion CommunityAmerica Credit Union in Lenexa, Kan., and as chair of CUNA's board of directors.
But his impact on the entire credit union movement could last for many years, because Pierce was the impetus behind a CUNA task force, which is reviewing proposals that could change the trade association's structure and governance, affecting every league as well as hundreds of credit unions.
Pierce instructed the task force to take a close look at the system's structure and governance options that are available to credit unions in order to meet the evolving needs of the movement that is rapidly changing because of credit union and league consolidations and other marketplace forces.
In a recent interview with CU Times, Pierce said the task force and its process is playing out as he hoped it would.
"The task force is doing a great job of looking at the issues and coming up with some proposed solutions," Pierce said. "It's a complex situation and there are lots of different options. We'll see how it plays out. I think it is progressing nicely and I think it will lead to substantive changes."
Some league presidents have either declined comment or said they are not ready to share their opinions until the task force finalizes its recommendations to the CUNA board, which may come next month when the board is scheduled to meet at America's Credit Union Conference and World Credit Union Conference July 12 to 15 in Denver.
In about two weeks, the 12-member task force is scheduled to meet in a two-day session.
The CUNA board, roundtable CEOs and league presidents received a report from the task force during a meeting in Denver that detailed survey results on what credit unions think about the state of the CUNA/League system as well as several preliminary ideas on how to improve it.
Findings of the report included that satisfaction with the CUNA/League system was not high, especially among larger credit unions, and that the majority of larger credit unions said they would prefer the choice to be a member of their state leagues or CUNA, according to a slide presentation obtained by CU Times.
In addition to a proposed preliminary idea of changing CUNA's name to America's Credit Unions, the report's other preliminary ideas include establishing league/national interdependence and retaining league/national connection with some credit union choice of league.
However, CUNA did not recommend changing the dual membership requirement.
As far as Pierce is concerned, the debates now occurring on CUNA's proposed changes will serve to benefit the movement over the long run.
"I think it is very healthy for us to have those kinds of conversations, engage in a debate and come up with the best possible structure to represent credit unions," Pierce said.
Read more on Pierce and CUNA's proposed changes in the June 17, 2015 issue of CU Times.
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