At HSBC, he often visited various customers of the bank, including Oswego County Federal Credit Union, which was near his home. Cummings soon grew tired of the 40-minute commute to HSBC and started looking for other jobs.

Every time OCFCU would order money, Cummings would make a point to speak with the vice president of member services.

"I threw a bug in her ear that I was looking for a job," Cummings said. "I kept pestering her until they finally had a position open, and I got an interview."

As vice president of branch operations, he's become the unofficial IT guy, taking on several noteworthy initiatives at the credit union. One of those initiatives included overseeing the development of a mobile app, as well as a rebate checking account product.

"The rebate checking is one of my bigger projects that I first started working on," he said. "When that took off, I was very proud; I saw it from the beginning until launch."

Cummings said members love the product because they can earn a 2.5% rebate on their average daily balance if they complete 15 debit card transactions a month, make one direct deposit per month, sign up to receive monthly e-statements and enroll in OCFCU online banking.

The rebate checking accounts are favored among members. The accounts have an average daily balance of $3,069.50 as well as an average of 26.8 debit card transactions per month, while non-rebate checking accounts only have an average daily balance of $723.09 and an average of 7.2 debt card transactions per month.

Cummings said he is always working to educate and inform himself and those around him.

"I love to learn, I love to go to conferences and see what's new," he expressed. "By learning, you're never going to hurt anybody; you're only going to better yourself and better your organization and better your members."

After noticing a gap in employee communication, Cummings saw an opportunity for growth and education. He spearheaded the development of an employee intranet, which has helped synchronize employee information and knowledge across the credit union. The intranet provides a central storing location for employee resources, including employee contact information; documents; monthly statistics on income, shares, loans and expenses; and membership. This increased transparency has created an open book policy for staff by allowing them to see how their work impacts the organization.

When staff members fill in for one another at different offices, all of their links and documents are still accessible through the employee intranet. This allows for uniformity and standardization across the organization. Members can walk into any branch and always have access to the same information.

Although the credit union is always trying to keep up with technology, Cummings acknowledged it does create an issue: The loss of a personal touch with members.

"For us, that's something we've kept an eye on," he emphasized. "We pride ourselves on our staff. We need to get members in the door as much as we want to offer them convenient solutions so they don't have to come to the credit union."

With convenience in mind, OCFCU is in the process of developing a text concierge, in which members can talk to a member service representative via text message.

"This gives us a way to talk to them one on one; but in a way, they want to do it," Cummings said.

He also added that even though the credit union tries to stay abreast on technological advancements, everyone will always have technological competition. Therefore, the key to success is a good staff.

"There are a million choices for financial institutions, whether they are brick and mortar or internet based accounts," he said. "As much as we try to stay ahead of the curve on technology, it is our staff that keeps us outstanding. We can't teach personality."

The best advice he likes to offer people is to never sweat the small stuff. Either get angry, or you laugh at the situation and get through it, he said, noting that in many instances, laughing at a situation makes correcting the problem so much easier.

This philosophy was put to the test when a car jumped a curb and ruptured the gas line at an OCFCU location. This caused a power outage, which shut down communication from the main servers to the satellite offices.

"Without that communication, the other branches have no access to our teller systems," Cummings said. "Of course, this happened on a day when I had come down with a cold, and I would have used a sick day had there not been an emergency at the office."

He said instead of getting frustrated, he just focused on a solution and laughed at the craziness of the situation. Eventually, with his help, the situation was resolved.

Cummings said he's very pro-credit union because he quickly learned their biggest strengths are each other.

"I've never seen an industry that is so willing to help each other out," he said. "If a credit union is struggling, it reaches out to other credit unions."

When another credit union called Cummings for help with switching its debit card processor, Cummings went to the credit union over a weekend to help out. He had just gone through the process himself and knew how arduous it was.

"It blows your mind, when you come from commercial banking to a credit union, and they tell you to call another credit union for help!" Cummings exclaimed.