In the span of just two months from December 2016 to January 2017, criminals used employees and members as hostages and terrorized them during robbery attempts at three credit union branches in Florida, Alabama and California.

Although no one was hurt, executives explain how these traumatic events affected their credit unions in the aftermath, how they managed the hostage crisis and what were the most important lessons learned.

Shortly after 9 a.m., Nicholas Humphrey walked into a Jacksonville, Fla., branch of the $1.5 billion Community First Credit Union posing as a blind man with a dog on a leash. He then pulled out a gun and took eight employees and five members hostage. During a tense two-hour standoff with police, he demanded money and threatened to kill the hostages.