Daggs joined the credit union industry shortly after graduating college. In the process of figuring out his post-college career, he got a painful but humorous wake-up call – he didn't realize he had to look for a job, he joked.

“I thought I was Matthew McConaughey and I was going to get a bunch of calls from agencies telling me they wanted me,” he said.

While his Hollywood-like dream didn't happen, he did land a job as a graphic designer at the $106 million University and Community Federal Credit Union in Stillwater, Okla. What was originally intended as a year-long detour ended up becoming a career after Daggs fell in love with the credit union industry. After more than three years as graphic designer, Daggs became director of marketing at UCFCU.

As part of his role as director of marketing, he helped develop a financial education class curriculum for local businesses and college students.

Using his own lessons from financial missteps in his youth, Daggs was able to better assess the pitfalls of financial mismanagement and help develop the curriculum for financial education.

He said he thinks a lot of people don't ever receive the financial education they need to budget, which leads to poor and fast decisions on buying items such as cars as motorcycles.

“Working at the credit union, my boss taught me how to do that stuff,” he recalled.

To help solve this issue, Daggs helped develop a program at UCFCU around Albert, the smart car. The campaign was dubbed: “Plan Smart. Live Smart. Financial Education for All.”

“With this campaign, we have seen loan growth go up more than 5%, and new accounts growth went up 3%,” he said.

Daggs said he knows that he isn't going to change the entire financial industry, but that he believes he can make a difference one member at a time, even if it's not profitable.

“I fully understand that we are a business and we have to make money,” he emphasized. “But I will never stop teaching any one person or group just because we may not make money off of them. I teach people to give them tools to live a better financial life, and in turn they may see the value of being a part of our credit union.”

In March 2015, UCFCU won a CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council contest called The Pitch for its financial education program.

After nearly nine years at UCFCU, he accepted his current position at Red Crown as vice president of marketing. In his new position, he wants to focus not just on marketing, but also employee culture and training.

Red Crown recently merged with another credit union in a nearby county, making it the only credit union in the area. This created a perfect opportunity to expand the credit union's member base, Daggs said. He added he wants to launch an overall campaign to get more market share in the new county and provide the credit union with an opportunity to showcase its products and services.

“A lot of it is going to be working with the schools and doing promotions and partnerships with high schools and early elementary schools,” he said.

When it comes to marketing, there's often a divide between big credit unions and small credit unions, he explained. If their resources are limited, credit unions often have trouble with branding.

“They don't have the resources to market,” Daggs said. “A lot of small credit unions do marketing old style. I always look at people's websites. If your website looks like it's from the late 90s, I would never do business there.”

Just because marketing has always been done a certain way, that doesn't mean it's the best way, he noted.

“We need to look at what we need to do to be different from all the banks in the community,” he said.

Credit unions need to find their niche, and constantly reevaluate to see how they can shift to better accommodate members, he said.

He added he thinks credit unions need to train their staff in a way that gives them a 360-degree understanding of the credit union and how their work impacts other areas.

“It adds more value and makes employees want to do their job better,” he said.

In the age of technology, options are plentiful and consumer loyalty is more fluid. Daggs said messages need to be targeted and reach members in the way they want to receive them.

“They’ll go out and do research and they don't have to stick with one place,” he said. “If your message is not what they’re looking for, they’ll move on.”

Competition from non-banking industry companies is one of Daggs’ biggest concerns, he said, noting that non-industry companies such as insurance companies, brokers and car dealerships don't abide by the same regulations as financial institutions.

The Trailblazers 40 Below honoree said he is hopeful about financial education and the credit union industry as a whole.

“This is what our society deserves, a financial industry that will take care of them and give them the best products and services that they can, at a great price and with amazing service,” he said.