6 Credit Unions, CUNA Make Professional Appointments

EAST

The $314 million Evergreen Credit Union in Portland, Maine named Richard Folse vice president of branch administration. Folse comes to Evergreen from the $3.6 billion Gesa Credit Union in Richland, Wash., where he served as assistant vice president, area sales and service manager. He was responsible for leading, coaching and managing up to 10 service center managers and approximately 150 staff members.

The $1.4 billion Hanscom Federal Credit Union in Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., promoted Denise Bouchard to assistant vice president, information security officer.

Bouchard oversees the information security team, reporting directly to Chief Information Officer David Minker. Bouchard joined Hanscom in early 2018 as the information security officer. Since then, she has matured the credit union’s information security practice through the introduction of several critical programs, effectively strengthening the organization’s defenses against a myriad of threats.

MIDWEST

The $4.3 billion Veridian Credit Union in Waterloo, Iowa promoted Jodie Harms to senior financial analyst. Harms has worked at Veridian for 12 years. She was previously a senior accountant. Harms has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Iowa.

The $2.6 billion Royal Credit Union in Eau Claire, Wis., named Tad Carlson vice president of IT solutions and development. Carlson is based at Royal’s corporate center in Eau Claire. He is responsible for overseeing the applications development, business intelligence and analytics, and application analyst teams at Royal.

These teams maintain and enhance many of the systems at Royal including consumer and business online banking, and business intelligence platforms. Carlson began his career with Royal in January 2018 as an application analyst.

SOUTH

The $1.3 billion Credit Union of Texas in Allen, Texas announced two appointments.

Chris Del Guidice was named vice president of digital strategy. Del Guidice is directing the digital strategy across all divisions of the organization and developing forward-looking strategies to leverage new and innovative digital initiatives to advance the credit union’s market position. Del Guidice has more than 20 years of experience in fintech, digital transformation, operations and process improvement. He has held numerous executive positions in the financial services industry with companies including Upgrade, Liberty Lending, BorrowersFirst, GE Capital and Dell Financial Services.

Aaron Packard was named digital marketing and web development director. Packard is managing CUTX’s new website as well as its digital marketing campaigns. Packard joins CUTX from Redshift Web, a digital marketing and web development agency where he implemented multi- and omni-channel marketing solutions, built and collaborated on dozens of websites, and managed digital advertising campaigns. He is a certified campaign manager for both the Google Marketing Platform and Microsoft Search Network.

The $5.3 billion Redstone Federal Credit Union in Huntsville, Ala., hired Raj Paul Prasad to its team as senior assistant vice president for data science and analytics. Prasad comes to Redstone after 20 years with Capitol One, where he specialized in software engineering and worked on Big Data and Fast Data strategies to grow its credit card business. Prasad joins a newly-created department that will bring a dedicated team with a laser focus on data, and how the credit union can understand and use it to offer the best possible products and services for members.

TRADES

CUNA announced its committee assignments for 2020. Three Dakotans have been appointed and will be serving at the national level, making a difference for credit unions around the country.

Amy Kleinschmit, chief compliance officer at the Credit Union Association of the Dakotas, was appointed to CUNA’s Consumer Protection Subcommittee. The purpose of this committee is to monitor developments, address concerns and advise CUNA staff in the area of consumer financial protection laws and regulations; to develop voluntary guidelines in this area for the benefit of credit unions and their members; and to make recommendations to the Advocacy Committee to minimize or eliminate requirements without jeopardizing consumer protections.

Jeff Olson, president/CEO of the Credit Union Association of the Dakotas, was named American Association of Credit Union Leagues Executive Board Member for the CU Awareness LLC Board of Directors. This new board is responsible for ensuring a sustainable funding model and for the overall governance and direction of the “Open Your Eyes to a Credit Union” awareness initiative. The board is responsible for activating industry participation and engagement, along with measurement and metrics of the program, and ensuring that the activities of the awareness initiative are consistent with and further the principal purposes for which the initiative was formed.

Fran Sommerfeld, president/CEO of the $301 million Sioux Falls Federal Credit Union in Sioux Falls, S.D., was appointed to the Credit Union Powers Subcommittee. This committee provides feedback on pending legislative and regulatory proposals affecting credit union powers at the federal and state government level. They also develop recommendations to the advocacy committee to address those concerns.

Please send your People news items to Tahira Hayes at thayes@cutimes.com.