Schenck, in an interview following PenFed's announcement of the new PenFed Digital division, said the multimedia presentation showed the power of combining different media elements to tell a story, and convinced him to create "a division that can tell the credit union story of people helping people."

"It really resonated with the tens of thousands of people in the audience," he said. "It was at that moment that it solidified my intent to create a digital division."

Schenck continued, "When you bring words and music and stories together, that's how you capture attention. In the digital age, people want content. Twenty minutes from now the news is already old, they're ready for more content."

PenFed hired four seasoned journalists for PenFed Digital; three members of the team came from WUSA, the CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C.:

• Andrea McCarren, VP and chief content officer, describes herself on her Twitter account as a "recovering journalist." In her 30 years of television news reporting and producing, she has won 20 Emmy Awards, three Edward R. Murrow Awards and a 2018 Gracie Award for military affairs reporting. For the last nine years she had been a multimedia journalist with WUSA.
• Christopher Mullen, Chris Mullen, Senior Manager of Creative Content at PenFed, came to the credit union with 15 years of photojournalism experience, the last six years with WUSA.
• John Mogor, senior manager of content strategy, has more than 10 years of photojournalism experience, the last four with WUSA.
• Amanda Ota, manager of content development, is a multimedia web producer and online news writer who had worked the last two years as a Washington, D.C. lobbyist for the Sinclair Broadcast Group.

The team offcially started their work with PenFed on Jan. 2. Since then, they've been building a bank of stories, which they began posting in late February on PenFed's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn accounts.

The team's first story focused on Cedric King, CEO of the PenFed Foundation Speakers Bureau. King is a veteran who lost both legs in combat, and is shown delivering a motivational speech to members of the Boston Red Sox.

One video shows Army veteran Chris Chavez who has taken up cooking to help cope with his post-traumatic stress injury from six combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another video highlights Puerto Rican high school students who learned how to manage their money and now share dreams of rebuilding their island.

McCarren said her team will continue traveling the country to capture the words and images of "ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things."

"Our team's mission is to share stories of inspiration, resilience and service," she said. "We will give them a voice and a platform to share their experiences with the world."

PenFed said the launch of PenFed Digital is part of its broader commitment to building brand awareness, highlighting its community and elevating the credit union industry. Those efforts also include PenFed Marketing and WHITE64, the marketing and advertising agency PenFed acquired in September 2018.