Credit Human Hops From San Antonio to New Orleans

Credit Human is a San Antonio credit union with far reaching plans.

With more than 20 branches in the San Antonio area, the credit union decided a few years back to serve neighborhoods with high needs and few financial providers further from its homebase.

Further, in this case, landed the credit union 550 miles east in New Orleans in March 2022 with its first out-of-state branch. It opened a second in March of this year, a third is opening later this month and two more are on the way by early 2024.

The move was far from San Antonio, but it was back home for President/CEO Steve Hennigan, who grew up there.

His experience helped, but the credit union worked to get it right with research, planning and consulting with residents where it wanted to open branches. It also is careful to pick the right people.

One was Jennifer Jaskierny, who grew up in New Orleans. She worked for five years for a bank early in her career and the other 14 years at area credit unions before joining Credit Human in 2021 to manage its new operations in New Orleans.

Like many credit unions, it chose to refer to them as something other than “branches,” which it associates with a place focused on transactions. Instead, Credit Human’s are called “financial health centers” because they’re focused on providing a place for conversations for members to meet needs and fulfill dreams.

“We don’t care if you’re a member,” she said. “If you need help with a budget, your credit, you know, if you just want to come in and talk to us to figure out a savings plan, walk on in, we’ll be happy to help you.”

The credit union recruited residents in areas where the credit union wanted to open branches. The groups provided input on general needs and preferences as specific as upholstery fabrics.

The branches are designed by the OJT architectural firm of New Orleans, which has converted existing commercial buildings and tied them together with design elements such as screens that descend a few feet from the ceiling designed to evoke the ornamental detail on a traditional New Orleans porch, inviting conversation.

Its next branches are planned for somewhere along Magazine Street this fall and another in the Elysian Fields neighborhood by early 2024.

Jaskierny’s challenges include finding reliable contractors with so many still repairing damage from 2021’s Hurricane Ida. Another is finding locations in underserved areas that are also safe for employees.

But her main focus is hiring. “I have seven open positions to fill and our training program is about three months long. So it’s really getting those people in and trained in time to open to new locations.”

A successful applicant goes through a pre-screen, meets other employees at a branch, interviews with Jaskierny and then interviews with Jaskierny’s manager.

“We put a lot of money into training our employees,” she said. “We’re not just training you on the products and services and how to work the computer systems. We train the whole individual. Because we spend so much money training these individuals, we like to make sure that we’re getting the right people in the seats.”