Reed's professional evolution from community bank to credit union leader came to a crossroads a few years ago when her community bank was being absorbed by a much larger bank in the region. For more than seven years, Reed was SVP, credit administration for Valley Bank in Roanoke, Va. Once the Bank of North Carolina acquired Valley Bank, she knew she wanted to keep doing what she loved, but on a local level.

"When you don't have to answer to stockholders and others not even living in our community, it's such a satisfying level of achievement working at a credit union," Reed said.

Freedom First, headquartered in Roanoke, Va., and with assets reaching $500 million and a membership of 47,765, Reed knows her community "isn't a boom town." But, she added, "There's a real relationship-based banking style to Freedom First." And that's what motivates her lending approach to her community.

"When I came on, we were only dabbling in commercial lending and now we've been able to create a real community business bubble for ourselves," Reed said.

Reed and her team's focus is assisting small business owners in creating a solid financial foundation to stand on.

"We're helping folks rebuild their credit," she said. "We're assisting small businesses – it's a circle of benefits focused on our community. And we've since created a great little ecosystem all its own. It's a very nice ecosystem that really helps other people."

Reed knows a good thing when she sees it – and she saw it in Freedom First.

"When the community bank was no longer community-focused, and I came over to Freedom First, I knew we could capitalize on this gap," she said. Over the years, Reed had built numerous relationships with people, business owners and community organizations that trusted her.

2016 was Reed's year to build her team, core systems and "get everything set up how I wanted," she said. With her former community bank out of the local scene, she said business owners were thrilled that "You guys are local!" Reed said. "And that has been a huge selling point for us."

Because of her vision and plans, Freedom First's business portfolio nearly doubled in that transition year of 2016 alone.

Now that we are well into 2017, she feels like "we have caught up with the basics and now we need to enhance our products and services and make them much more relationship oriented."

While many credit unions are, and believe they are, community- and relationship-oriented, Freedom First really takes this concept literally. And they do it with an ice cream truck they call "Scoop."

The brightly-colored ice cream truck "is so much fun," Reed said. "You see that truck at every community event. We take it to schools and churches and no matter where it goes, we hand out free ice cream."

What does Scoop, the ice cream truck, have to do with business lending? Sometimes Reed gets behind the wheel.

"I love driving it! I'm a pretty short person though and the seat isn't adjustable, so I can't drive over 40 miles per hour," she said with a laugh.

"Everything we do is for the community," Reed said. It's that simple. And that truck is a physical embodiment of that belief.

Combining the fun, the community and the work all in one Venn diagram, you discover just how connected everything is to each other. And you can guarantee that Reed sees the same thing from her and her team's development of operating new lines of credit, new real estate loans and enhanced online banking. "Business members expect something different than what consumers expect – each require a different level of sophistication," Reed said.

That sophistication is paying off for small business members who have loans with Freedom First, "they need to be able to see and track accounts receivable, plan for payroll and timing needs to pay their bills," Reed said. "Until this past year, we weren't able to give them that."

Understanding the Roanoke business community as she and Freedom First does, the credit union is bearing fruit from its membership growth. "It's so rewarding because we've developed grant programs, scholarships and we've even built a new branch for the underserved population," Reed said. She excitedly added, "We are helping revitalize our area!"

She believes Freedom First is hitting its stride with local business relationships and bringing in new members by being so visible and deeply involved with what's going on in Roanoke. Reed also believes that what she and her credit union are doing is benefiting the credit union industry as a whole.

"All of this has brought a lot more attention to credit unions as a consumer and now they see us as being able to handle a variety of membership types," Reed said.

What has been the most difficult part of coming into the credit union business lending world from community banking? "Calling people 'members.' For years it was drilled into my mind that everyone is a client or customer," Reed said. "Sometimes I still slip up on that, so please forgive me," she laughed.

With the rapid turnaround from community bank to credit union life and doubling the commercial lending business in one year, she's forgiven.

Maybe along with her trophy for the Trailblazer Award for Lending Officer of the Year, she should get a phonebook to sit on when she drives Scoop around town. Laughing, she responded, "I think we're on the right track."

Indeed.