Feel Shaken Up by the NCUA Shakeup? Insights From an Insider

Key takeaways

1. The NCUA shake-up doesn’t signal the end of the world for the credit union movement… at least not right now. The agency can still function effectively with one Board member in the short-term, but it is important to think ahead to what could happen if a major catastrophe hit, like a cyber security attack, and the agency was not fully equipped to respond. There are sound reasons why Congress decided that three Board members were better than one. 
   
   
2. Credit union leaders need to be thinking about succession planning, even if it seems like an onerous task or something far removed from more immediate priorities. It’s especially important for smaller credit unions with CEOs who are intimately involved in daily operations. Merging or getting acquired can be a succession strategy, but that should only happen when it’s something credit unions plan for and actively choose to do, not because they’re backed into a corner. 
   
   
3. For credit union leaders, the focus right now should be on what you can control. Prioritize the well-being of your members and advocate for them by communicating with your regulators and lawmakers. They will read your comments and letters!

Resources & links

• NCUA (National Credit Union Administration)

• Atlas Advocacy

• America’s Credit Unions (formerly CUNA)

• Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA)

• Sallie Mae

• FFIEC (Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council)
  

• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

• FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)

• OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency)
  

• In‑N‑Out Burger
  (if you know, you know)

Read the full transcript:

Katie:
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Credit Union Podcast. We created our podcast to help credit union leaders think outside of the box about marketing, technology, and community impact. The Remarkable Credit Union is brought to you by PixelSpoke, a digital marketing agency that works with credit unions to create user-friendly, high-converting, award-winning websites. As a B Corp and an employee-owned cooperative, we believe that business can and should be a force for good. Each episode we bring on expert guests from the credit union and broader cooperative movement for conversations about the intersection of marketing and social impact. Our goal is to challenge your preconceptions about business as usual, and provide you with actionable takeaways that you can use to grow your membership, improve the financial health of your cooperative, and better serve your community. I'm Katie Stone, CEO, and a co-owner here at PixelSpoke.

Kerala:
And I'm Kerala Goodkin, also a co-owner and the director of marketing and impact here at PixelSpoke. Just a quick note to some of our regular listeners in case there's any confusion, I'm the same co-host, but now have a different last name. And we are so excited to talk NCUA today. Our big question is what are the consequences, either intentional or unintentional of this recent NCUA shakeup and how can credit unions mobilize to protect the future of the movement? I'm very excited to be joined today by Elizabeth Eurgubian. She is currently a partner at Atlas Advocacy, which is a government relations firm, and prior to that served as director of external affairs and communications and a policy advisor for the NCUA.

Kerala:
She has had a long and illustrious career prior to that as well, she was the deputy chief advocacy officer and senior counsel for regulatory and executive branch relations, quite a mouthful, at the Credit Union National Association, otherwise known as CUNA, which is now known as America's Credit Unions. And before that she worked as a regulatory attorney for the Independent Community Bankers of America and as in-house counsel at Sallie Mae and an attorney for the Federal Reserve. Wow. Thank you so much for joining us, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth:
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Kerala:
We'll definitely get to recent events in a bit, but I was wondering if we could just start by talking a bit more about your role at the NCUA and just what accomplishments or milestones during your tenure are you most proud of?

Elizabeth:
Definitely. My role at the NCUA, like you said, I was the director of the Office of External Affairs and Communications and I was also a policy advisor to then Chairman Todd Harper. This is a political appointee position, so you're there pretty much as long as the administration's in place. I was appointed under the Biden administration, so when the administration switched over to the Trump administration, my position would then go to one of the Trump administration choices. I stayed during the transition until about late February until the new individual could take place that worked then for Chairman Houtman. The department that I worked for and led, it only reports to the chairman. There's two departments in the NCUA that only report to the chairman. They do not report to the executive director of the agency and they do not report to the full board. And OEAC was one of them, the department I oversaw and then also the Office of Women and Minority Inclusion was another department that reported directly to the chair. Everything else the full board has jurisdiction over.

Elizabeth:
My department, we do all of the external communication, so anything that goes out to the industry from the NCUA, whether it's letters to credit unions, anything with the website at that time, social media, press releases, press statements, speeches the chairman gives, we work on all of those things. We also worked on the legislative issues for the chair at the time and we would do all of the congressional affairs, so when folks, members of Congress ask for information, they want background or they want some technical assistance on a bill, how would it impact credit unions? We provide that. We would help the members of the board when they were going through the confirmation process, help them with their testimonies for that. Usually the chairman of the NCUA testifies in front of Congress, House and Senate Committees twice a year. We would do the work on those testimonies and help prepare the chair for those testimonies, so anything related to congressional affairs, anything related to communications and anything related to our stakeholders. Meeting with credit unions, meeting with different trade associations, leagues, other associations, even banking associations, we would have those meetings and arrange those meetings.

Elizabeth:
But because the chair, and this is a key point, the chair is the spokesperson for the agency, not the board, so everything we worked on was really for the chair. And if another board member wanted us to write a speech, we really didn't do that kind of thing. We really just worked for the chair. That's the point of that job. And it was, of course you could imagine very busy, never a dull moment in that department. I wish I could take credit for something, I wish I could say I went to the NCUA and because of me X happened. Everyone in DC, myself included, we all have big egos. I really can't say that though. I think in terms of accomplishments, what I think I did the best at working for OEAC was finding out what my team members were really good at and letting them do that and not getting in their way and really encouraging them to do the things that they were really, really good at so that they could excel.

Elizabeth:
And I think with any leader, that's really the key is looking at all your team members and saying, "This one's really good at this one thing here. I'm going to tell them to put more resources into that and really direct their attention to that." And because of that there were certain skill sets that the OEAC team members had that were amazing. One was they were really good at web design, really, really good. The NCUA website, when I was a stakeholder at CUNA, I liked the NCUA website. I found it very helpful, very usable. And because of that, because we were really good at that, the folks in charge of that were very, very good, they positioned themselves to oversee the FFIEC website, which is the inter-agency group that works for all the financial regulators and NCUA is overseeing that website design, redesign for all the agencies. That was something we were very, very proud of. We also won a lot of awards for some of the stuff we did on our website, like our 508 compliance, it's a compliance initiative all of the federal government agencies have to comply with this.

Elizabeth:
And we were ranked as one of the top agencies of all agencies in the country on our compliance with 508 and the best among the financial regulators. Another example, I had one colleague who was exceptionally advanced and knowledgeable on cybersecurity issues and national security implications of cybersecurity. And I worked with him to really educate the credit union industry on this because it's such a critical issue and such a potential threat that could really harm the industry, I think more than anything. Because there wasn't a lot of information out to the industry on this, he went around the country literally speaking to boards of directors directly. I had participated in some of those meetings as well with him talking about cybersecurity because that's what he really knew so well and could really teach to the industry and they could benefit from that.

Elizabeth:
I wish I could say I did this great thing and as a result, the world is better. I don't think I have that. I think the thing I did was make my team members have the ability to do their jobs as best as they could and not get in their way. And so I'll take credit for that.

Kerala:
Wow. I can confidently say I think that's one of the most important things as a leader and Katie is our CEO and our co-leader, Dave, as our president, do a very good job of that. And it makes all the difference. You want everyone to be playing to their strengths, so good job there. And also somewhat surprising and fun to hear about the expertise in website design. I often don't associate that with government agencies, but obviously as a website design agency ourselves, we believe in the power of good design and the importance of all that comes with it, so it's great to hear. And I love just learning more about what this whole agency does because I know a little, I probably know more than the average person.

Kerala:
If the NCUA is much on the radar of a credit union member, I imagine it's more like, oh, they're the people who are going to pay me if I lose all my money, so I love learning more about what you actually do. And I also know that we need to talk about what's been going on there lately. I know it's caught a lot of people by surprise, including the two board chairs who were recently fired, Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka. Now it's down to this one board chair, Kyle Hauptman, who he actually joined our podcast a few years back, but he seems to be operating as a board of one, which you've expressed some concern over. And not just you, but can you explain to our listeners why this is a problem and what threats it could pose to the movement?

Elizabeth:
Yeah, sure. Well, the reason I had concern over a board of one is because it's just not what the statute says. The statute is very explicit in this is a three member board, two can be from the same political party, one can be from a different political party, only one should have immediate credit union experience, the other should not. There's all of these provisions, there's staggered terms, there's a chair. Then there's all of these provisions in the statute that are fairly prescriptive on what that board should look like. And when you look at a statute, you always look at what was Congress intending when they wrote this? They wouldn't have given all of those criteria for the three board members if it was okay to just have one because then that would make those provisions ridiculous at that point. And if also, what is the point of having the two even expressly stated in there, what's the point of those other two board members? Are they back up singers? What are they supposed to do for the chair?

Elizabeth:
I think that's my concern is that it's not what the statute says and that's not what Congress intended. Congress intended it to be run by a three member board. Now, if Congress intended it to be a one person director, that's fine, whatever. That's happened before when the agency was run by... Years ago as it evolved over time, it was run by one director and then eventually it became a board. The NCUA is now celebrating I think their 55th birthday this year, so they turned 55. We have the three member board, the share insurance fund's about the same age too, so that was the intent of the statute and you just got to follow the intent. That's how our laws work. In terms of the two board members being dismissed for cause, that's something that's going to have to be worked out in the courts. The statute is not explicit on whether you can remove them for cause.

Elizabeth:
There's not an explicit piece in there, although I think it implicitly implies that... If I were reading it, I would think, no, you can't. But see, I'm not a judge. I'm not judge in this case, so my opinion's not relevant. We'll see what happens and how the courts interpret that. But that aside, my concern with the one board member was just it's not what Congress wanted. Now, do I think it's good for the industry? There's a lot the NCUA does through delegated authority where you delegate the authority to different folks that are director level and there's a lot the NCUA can do with one board member. As you're going through transitions, this sometimes happens, rulemakings, any appeals on charters, those sorts of things you need the three board members, you need a quorum for which they don't have with one, so that's becomes tricky. But in terms of losing the other two board members, is the world going to come to an end? No. There's some autopilot that could happen with the one board member in terms of running the agency, exams keep happening.

Elizabeth:
You're not going to pass any new rulemakings, but I'm guessing that wouldn't happen either way. I think there is a level of time that could pass with one chair running things. As I told you, all the interagency work, all the spokesperson work, that's the chair in a normal situation. But the board is intended to have a three member board, and I think it runs best when it has that, obviously. Even if the infrastructure was set up for it to be one member, I don't think that would be ideal. You've seen folks in the industry articulate concern for the CFPB having one director and not a board with different perspectives to weigh in. And I think the same concerns would be valid for the NCUA, so I think it would run better. That's how it's been running and I hope it gets figured out soon. What would I tell members? I'll tell you when I was at OEAC, so you have to prepare press releases for when anything happens or statements.

Elizabeth:
And sometimes you want to be proactive, you want to make sure you have some language saved for certain scenarios. Like let's say a board member gets hit by a bus or something and what are you going to tell the... What's that press release going to look like? We would have a lot of this language pre-done for various scenarios, like if there was a terrorist attack or if there was an outage that was very serious, if for some reason there was no board quorum like you have now, certain scenarios, we would have some language saved to refer to. And in all of this language, there was always the point that regardless of what's happening, credit union members funds are insured up to the $250,000 per member and credit union members have never lost a penny of insured shares, federal credit union members. That was always the point we said to members, and that's really all members need to know, is my money insured? Yes, it is. Everything else, that's fun for us to have a conversation about, but for purposes of members, the thing they need to know is their money's still insured.

Elizabeth:
It's never been an issue where federal insured credit unions haven't been able to give that money back up to the limits. That's never happened. We don't expect it to happen. And regardless of what happens with the NCUA, their funds are still insured.

Katie:
That's really great messaging and I think our audience will especially appreciate that. Most of our audience is credit union marketers and I think they're feeling a little stuck on what do we talk about? How much do we talk about it? How do we keep our members in the loop without stoking fear? And I think that going back to that basic messaging and focusing on what a member is most worried about and that's their finances and the security of them is really crucial.

Elizabeth:
Absolutely. I would keep it really simple to that. They don't need to know all this other stuff. We could debate it and talk about it and worry about it and that sort of thing. They only need to know that one piece, so I feel like we over tell people stuff. Just tell them the thing they need to know and let them worry about the rest of their life and we could worry about the more intricate stuff.

Kerala:
I just had a quick follow up about worrying. I'm curious, you hear a lot of catastrophizing around various things these days and there's a lot to potentially worry about and a lot of anxiety out there. I'm just curious about your thoughts, there's murmurs about consolidating regulatory agencies and Project 2025 and I'm just curious if... It sounds like you're pretty confident the agency can run for a certain amount of time with one chair, but do you feel like this could potentially signal something else, some bigger shake up in the industry?

Elizabeth:
I don't know if that's the intention. It always could be. This administration does things that I don't always predict that are going to happen. But if you want to weaken the agency and then the agency makes a mistake and then you say, see, this agency doesn't know what they're doing, we need to consolidate it. That's a great game plan. If I were trying to make something look inept, I'm going to set them up so that they can look inept, so I think it would be a great game plan for that. Is that what's happening? I don't know if that's what's happening per se. I do think any kind of regulatory consolidation, it's always... That generally would take a change in Congress for that to happen. Do I think that would be problematic for credit unions? Absolutely. I have said this many times, if that were to happen, that would be very, very problematic for credit unions. Credit unions are a very niche type of financial institution. There's many of them. They have their own share insurance fund, they need their own regulator.

Elizabeth:
Having a different regulator would be really problematic I think for the industry, having one that doesn't understand them. You're not going to see tailored rulemaking at all in the future if that happens. You're not going to see exams really tailored to the niche industry of credit unions if that happens. I know credit unions come to town, they love meeting with the board members and staff at the NCUA. That will not happen if there's a consolidation. It's very difficult to do that on the bank side. Credit unions are very lucky that they have that kind of access to their regulator. I never saw similar access when I worked for banks and the banking regulators, and I don't think credit unions understand that because a lot of folks haven't been on that other side. I've been on that other side and when I went to the credit union side and saw the access that the industry has to talking with their regulator, I was shocked. It was night and day versus what I had experienced working on the bank side, so it would not be good for credit unions if that were to happen.

Elizabeth:
And the best thing to do is you can't control that decision, but you can't advocate. We all have the power to do that and to tell our lawmakers, this is really why we have to have our own regulator and keep educating them on that. I think that's very important for everybody in the industry to do because it only takes one problem, a huge cybersecurity incident that impacts the whole industry, a massive credit union failure that hits the share insurance fund really hard and makes big press, something that becomes viral on social media, it becomes exacerbated. And then there's runs on credit units and now you only have a one member board and a lot of staff leaving, so the agency's not in a really great space to begin with and can't handle those issues like that might've been able to a year or two ago. It only takes one thing like that to happen, and then everyone's going to say, oh, the NCUA can't handle it. We got to consolidate the regulators.

Kerala:
Great points.

Katie:
All right. Well, changing gears quite dramatically actually, one of the areas of focus while you were at the NCUA was succession planning. And this is definitely something that it's timely here at PixelSpoke, our founder and former CEO moved into an advisory role about a year and a half ago, so we've been going through that succession process ourself here. I'd love to hear from you, why has this been a priority for the NCUA and what do you hope it will accomplish?

Elizabeth:
Sure. I could tell you the intent behind it. That regulation was passed, I think about a year or two... Right toward the end of last year it was finalized under Chairman Harper's time at NCUA, and the reason he really wanted to push for this rulemaking was he had seen some credit unions merge or get out of the business or merge with another credit union because they lost their CEO or they lost their leadership and they couldn't replace that person. They didn't have a succession plan or they had no plans to replace that individual, so they ended up having to make the decision, the business decision to merge or get out of the business. What I believe he had said on this issue was, if the credit union is going to make that business decision, that's great, whatever. That's up to them, whatever decision they're making to merge or to stop having their credit union but he would hate to see it be because of that.

Elizabeth:
If they have a decision to do that, if they want to do that because they think it's a good choice for their members, that's great, but to have to be put in a position to do it because you lost your leader, your leadership and you weren't prepared for that, that seems like an unfortunate reason to make that business decision. This rule was put in place for that reason to allow credit unions to plan for those situations and have a succession plan in place that their board is very active in putting together. Now, some credit unions were a little intimidated by this plan. I've seen the rule obviously at the NCUA, and there's even a model succession plan in the rule that credit unions can refer to. And if you're a bigger credit union, the model form is really for smaller credit unions, but the bigger credit unions can use it as a starting point and then add to it. This is not intended to take a ton of hours. This is really not a heavy lift. I think some credit unions thought it was a heavier lift than it was. It absolutely is not.

Elizabeth:
It just is trying to get the boards to think about what happens when that leadership positions, when those folks have to leave abruptly, who are we going to have in line for them that we could confidently put in those positions? And put that on paper. Again, it doesn't have to be the Magna Carta, just write it down, an outline. I think my high schooler could probably do it very well. There's a model form in there, and if there's ever any question when you're examined, you don't think it's good enough, tell the examiner, "If we didn't do good enough, tell us what we got to do better next time." And they'll tell you. I can't imagine somebody's going to really get attacked by their examiner because their succession plan isn't thorough enough. I think they really just... The intent was really to get credit unions to start thinking about this. That's 50% of it, it's just to start thinking about it.

Elizabeth:
And having some folks in line for this on paper, it could change. It's okay. It's a dynamic document. It doesn't have to be... This isn't in stone. It could change, but have them to start thinking about it and have something to work from when that happens.

Katie:
We were really fortunate here at PixelSpoke because Cameron gave us pretty significant notice and we had the opportunity to really take our time and figure out what was the right thing for the business, so I can certainly appreciate the value in putting some thought ahead of time into that in case you don't have the luxury of time on your side when you need to make that change.

Elizabeth:
Absolutely. Like what I said with when I worked in OEAC, we would have language pre-written for different scenarios. Now, are we going to put that exact language out if that scenario happens? Probably not, but it gives you a starting point so that you're not looking at a blank piece of paper when you're in that position. For me, the blank piece of paper scares the heck out of me. I like to have a look at something first and I'm like, "Oh, okay, I'm comfortable. Now we know where to go." Even if it's not that detailed. I think that was the intent for this rulemaking, and I hope credit unions can understand that it's not to give you more regulatory burden or anything like that, it's really to get the board to be active in thinking about these issues so that the credit union's not in a position of making a business decision later that's not in the best interest of their members.

Kerala:
Well, I can see it being perceived as another bureaucratic hurdle to jump or hoop to jump through, but I really do see it as a way of especially protecting the smaller credit unions where the CEO might wear a dozen different hats or more, and just making sure that if they leave, that the heart and soul of the credit union isn't compromised. Like Katie said, I can definitely attest to the importance of it, having been through this process ourselves, so I'm glad that's something that you guys were thinking about. And I noticed that another area of focus was vendor oversight. That caught my eye because at PixelSpoke, we don't like to call ourselves a vendor. It sounds transactional to us. We like to call ourselves a credit union partner, but for all intents and purposes, we would be considered a vendor. I'm just curious from your perspective, what should credit unions be thinking about when selecting vendors? What risks should they be aware of? What questions should they be asking?

Elizabeth:
Absolutely. The reason I think Chairman Harper was very interested in the NCUA having vendor authority over third-party vendors, CUSOs, is because we were the only financial regulator, the Fed, the FDIC, OCC, CFPB, they all have that authority and NCUA does not. And those other regulators, because they had the authority, and we didn't at the time the NCUA did not, they wouldn't share information with the NCUA. If they went and saw a vendor and there was a big problem with the credit union side of the business, they wouldn't share that with the NCUA because they said the NCUA doesn't have the authority to monitor that. That was a big blind spot, especially with regard to cybersecurity. And like I said before, cybersecurity to me is the biggest threat. Cyberattacks are the biggest threat to the credit union industry. I've always thought that, and I particularly thought that after working at the NCUA and learning what I learned there and how it really relates to national security and what other countries do to attack this country in terms of critical infrastructure and how financial institutions are part of that infrastructure, including credit unions.

Elizabeth:
I actually give a couple trainings on this to credit unions. If anyone's ever interested, feel free to reach out. But on this very, very issue, we talk about vendor relations too. Because the NCUA has this blind spot, what does that mean? Well, it means that credit unions really have to be extra diligent in looking at their vendors and making sure their vendors are doing cybersecurity assessments and that that's in their contracts, making sure that when you sign a third-party contract, you have everybody in the credit union that's really key look at that contract like your CFO. If you have a counsel, have them look at it. Don't just sign it and be, okay, we're done. Here you go. Negotiate the contract if you can. And even if you don't have a lot of bargaining authority, try your best in negotiating. Put some provisions in and see what you could get in there because the more, the better in protecting your credit union.

Elizabeth:
Also, looking at what subcontractors the vendor has. We saw this where I was at the NCUA, there was a vendor that had... I had heard of a vendor that had a subcontractor, that the people working for that subcontractor were in a country that is very unfriendly to the United States, and those were the people working on these issues, these tech issues. You don't know who's working on everything. Some of these jobs are outsourced to countries that... And I'm not going to put a country on the spot here, but it was not a friendly country. If I said the country, you would be like, "Oh, my God. Please tell me you're joking." That's the country it was, and this stuff is being outsourced to people there. Well, if I were running a very sophisticated core processing system in the US, I really wouldn't want that work being outsourced to that particular area of the world. A lot of this stuff, these are questions that credit unions should really look into when they pick their vendors.

Elizabeth:
Make sure your vendors in the contract, there's rights and responsibilities are clearly stated. There's no provisions that could adversely impact the credit union. There's indemnification clauses in your contracts and that they're going through security audits too. You got to go through those audits both in the credit union and the vendor has to. And then if the vendor has a breach that they're communicating that to the credit union as quickly as possible. Because like I said, the regulator didn't know the information. At the NCUA we were getting our information from credit unions, so as quickly as they could tell the credit union that that's very, very helpful in limiting the severity of any attack.

Kerala:
It's fascinating.

Elizabeth:
Oh, it was. I don't mean to scare you.

Katie:
No, it's actually... We often get RFPs or due diligence requests from potential clients or even current clients, and it's really good to better understand the why behind a lot of the questions they ask, so appreciate you sharing that insight. Well, we know that we are living in a time of extreme economic uncertainty, massive fraud, ongoing political volatility, all kinds of fun stuff going on right now, so we're curious to hear your take. How do you think credit union leaders can best protect and take care of their members during these very uncertain times?

Elizabeth:
Do your job as best as you can. I think a lot of times when there's activity going on domestically and internationally, we can get distracted by that, and we can't control any of that. You could only control what you could control, but you can control how you serve your members. That's what credit unions are able to control, so I would concentrate on that. How best can we serve our membership? How best can we protect our membership from any cyberattacks? I always say that, making sure your infrastructure in the credit union is as strong as possible, and there's thought put into that, you're not nickel and diming, nickel and dime on the other stuff. Don't nickel and dime on the tech stuff, that you got to get the very best. Make sure you have good policies and procedures. You're doing everything that's within your power to make your credit union effectively serve its members. And all this white noise that's going on with politics and the NCUA and what's happening, I can't control that, we can't control that, but you can control what you do for your members. I would say that's the best key.

Elizabeth:
Now, I'm not saying ignore politics and ignore what's happening on that side, but focus on what you can control. If there's letters that could be sent to the NCUA, if there's concerns on what they're doing, the NCUA reads those letters. I was shocked when I was at the NCUA at how much comment letters were read. I used to think, oh, they're not reading that. No, they read... Chairman Harper read all the letters. They read the letters and everybody on the board, they really, really care. When I was there, all three board members really cared about what individual credit unions said. Knowing what I know now, I would tell even the smallest credit union, even if you only have one point to say, it's worth sending a letter because that will be read by a lot of top officials at the NCUA, so advocate where you can.

Elizabeth:
And most of advocacy, I think on the credit union side is educating. It's not taking a political side. It's not saying, I'm this party or that party and duking it out. It's just telling lawmakers what it is you do, and if there's barriers to serving members what those barriers are, and then giving them solutions. Don't just say, okay, here's the problem, now you go fix it. No, give them the solution on what you think would work in helping. That's how you could be active on the advocacy side and the rest of the stuff on TV and whatnot, I would tune that out and just focus on what you have the power to make a difference with.

Kerala:
A very helpful and actionable answer. I appreciate it. And speaking of politics and white noise, one of the things I really appreciate about the credit union movement is that it has somehow managed to be a largely bipartisan movement, and even during so much polarization and so much division. And I noticed that at Atlas Advocacy where you're currently a partner, you describe yourselves as a bipartisan government relations firm, so I'm just curious, how do you go about taking a bipartisan approach with everything that's going on now, and how do you think we can protect bipartisan support for credit unions moving forward?

Elizabeth:
I think by working on the issues, focusing on the issue and not on the decision makers. I'm a trained attorney, and even as an attorney and lobbyist, half the stuff I advocated for worked on as an attorney, I don't even have a position on personally. If you ask me, what's your position on this? I'd have to stop and think. I don't even know, because my position was my client's position. My job wasn't to take a position. My job was to do what my client wanted me to do. And you're trained in law school to do that. That is pounded into your head, so there's never a question when you get out of law school, if you've been paying attention at all, you're not thinking about what's important to you. You're thinking about what's important to your client, and that's just the instinct. That's just what you're going to automatically default to. And I think same for good lobbyists. They're thinking about what is my... When I worked at the NCUA, I lobbied for the NCUA, so everything had to do with what did the NCUA want? What did Chairman Harper want?

Elizabeth:
Whether I agreed with it or not, that was who I lobbied for it. And at CUNA, same thing. What did CUNA want? What did credit unions want? That is who I lobbied for. I didn't question why did they want that? No, I went and that's what they wanted, that's what I lobbied for, and that's what good client work is, so I've never had that issue. We really care about our clients, just like credit unions really care about their members. You're not questioning your member, well, gee, how come your... You should have more money in your account? You are just making sure they have the account. That's your job. What they do with their money is their business, but your job as the credit union is to make sure that you're giving them the account services that they have requested, same as being a lobbyist and a lawyer, so that's how I've always thought of those things. Whatever my client wants, I'm going to serve them to the best of my ability.

Elizabeth:
In terms of politics, I think a lot of it is distraction. People want to distract you from the issue. What is the issue? The issue is who cares? Worry about serving your members, that is what you have to worry about. They're your clients, they're your members, they're part of the credit union. How best can you make their lives work for them with what you're doing, your communities, how can you make the communities... How can you serve them to the best of your ability? And then let this other stuff just happen and let someone else worry about it. That's really the advice I have, and it's what helps me. A lot of times when we have these political arguments, I'm not even really paying attention because I'm really just working on the issue that I'm working on and trying to get that issue through, whether it's in a bill or whether I'm preventing something from happening, really focusing on that and letting all of the other stuff just be a distraction from my adversaries.

Kerala:
It would be probably helpful advice for a lot of us in our day-to-day lives.

Elizabeth:
Well, I tell my kids all the time, focus. I always tell them, focus. That's the number one word used in my house.

Katie:
All right. Well, let's switch over to some rapid fire questions. These are just for fun. First one is, what is your favorite junk food?

Elizabeth:
Junk food? Oh, man. Well, I'm a Californian. I'm probably going to say burgers and fries and a shake from In-N-Out Burger. I'm from there, and whenever I go back, I got to go to my In-N-Out.

Katie:
Well, we've got three Californians here on the podcast.

Kerala:
There's a couple In-N-Outs in Oregon where Katie and I live now, so we're fans.

Elizabeth:
Very cool. I grew up in Fresno, California.

Katie:
I grew up in the Central Valley too, so every time we fly into Sacramento, which is the airport we use, that's usually the first stop, so In-N-Out.

Elizabeth:
Yes, definitely.

Katie:
What was your last Halloween costume?

Elizabeth:
We do Halloween big in my house. It's not my favorite holiday, but my kids and my husband love it. I believe I was Wonder Woman, and my dog was Wonder Woman too. My female dog and my myself, we were both Wonder Woman. We were twinning, so that was weird.

Katie:
And what was your favorite childhood TV show?

Elizabeth:
I would have to say Cheers, because I love the camaraderie. Camaraderie is just everything to me, like in the workplace. That's why I like the credit union movement too, because it's all about that for me. It's like working with people and having that buddy kind of relationship. And I felt that show was just... I loved it for that reason as the camaraderie of the cast members and how every episode took place in the bar. I just loved that show, so I would say that.

Kerala:
I just finished re-watching that show, and it's always fun to watch things from childhood and see what holds up and what doesn't but I was still laughing in many places.

Elizabeth:
Oh, yeah.

Kerala:
Sometimes cringing too but it's a great show. Let's do our final take. As a reminder our big question today was, what are the consequences, either intentional or unintentional of the recent NCUA shakeup? And probably more importantly, just how can credit unions mobilize to protect the future of the movement? In just a few sentences, if possible, can you summarize your thoughts on this?

Elizabeth:
Consequences? I think that the NCUA can probably run okay for a little while with one board member, because like I said, there's delegated authorities and whatnot, but it's just that's if nothing bad happens. If there's a huge cyber breach, if there's a credit union that has a major credit union failure that hits the share insurance fund, this is when things get really, really complicated. And the agency, if they can't act quickly and efficiently, and it's hard to do that when you have limited staff members, then they will look like they can't do the job, so I think that's your biggest threat. In a normal situation, if there's no problems, nothing in the environment that really impacts the industry, I think they could go for a little while like this and we should be fine. It's when there's that problem, being able to act extremely quickly, extremely efficiently, and cleaning up the problem. And if you're not able to do that, the agency doesn't look like they could do their job. That could lead to some sort of consolidation later down the line. I think that's your biggest issue right now.

Elizabeth:
In terms of share insurance and all of that, funds going to be insured, members are still going to be protected, so as of now, with regard to what they should be concerned with, that's all still there and they should be comforted with that fact. And then how can credit unions mobilize? I think really being active with your trade associations in their messaging, educating them, but also I think it's good for credit unions to send their own letters and have that education with their own members of Congress as much as they can. You don't always have to lobby on a specific issue. That's great, that's also part of lobbying but also the primary part of lobbying too is just educating lawmakers on what you do because in DC they have to worry about policy stuff. They don't know what's going on in a credit union day by day, and they have all sorts of industries that are coming and talking to them, not just financial services.

Elizabeth:
Making an effort to educate your members of Congress regardless of what politics they are and your regulators on the state side, on the federal side as much as possible, and being really active in the policymaking. And if that entails sending letters, that's good. And again, letters do not have to be like what the Trade Association send. They don't have to be 50 pages. You don't have to read the whole rulemaking and do a book report. You don't have to do that. It could be one point that you want the regulator to know, and you say, "Look, we defer to the trade association and everything else, but this point we want to highlight for you." And put a paragraph on that and mail it in or email it in. That's all you really have to do. And even those little pieces of advocacy make a really, really big difference. And all those letters get read all the way up to the top, so I think there's a lot that credit unions could do individually as well as working with their associations.

Kerala:
Well, it's so nice to know that those letters get read.

Elizabeth:
They do, shockingly.

Kerala:
I think from our side, you can wonder if you're sending something in to a void but that's great for us to know and for the folks listening as well. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Elizabeth. I learned a lot. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Elizabeth:
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me today.

Katie:
Thank you so much.

Kerala:
Oh, that was a fascinating conversation. I really learned a lot. And as far as three key takeaways, first and foremost, regarding the NCUA shakeup, it sounds like it doesn't necessarily signal the end of the world for the credit union movement, at least not right now. It sounds like the agency can still function effectively with one board member, at least in the short term. But it is important to think ahead to what could happen if say, a major catastrophe hit like a cyber security attack, and the agency just not being fully equipped to respond. I do think it's also important to keep in mind that there are sound reasons why Congress decided that three board members were better than one. And secondly, in regards to succession planning, it's something that credit union leaders really should be thinking about. I can certainly relate to that feeling like an onerous task as someone who is on the succession planning committee here at PixelSpoke.

Kerala:
And sometimes it might seem like something far removed from more immediate priorities, but I think it's important for all credit unions and especially important for smaller credit unions with CEOs who are really intimately involved in daily operations. And merging or getting acquired can be a succession strategy but that should only happen if it's something that the credit union plans for and actively chooses to do, not because they're backed into a corner. And lastly, for credit union leaders, the focus right now should be on what you can control. Elizabeth talked about prioritizing the well-being of your members and advocating for them by communicating with your regulators and lawmakers. They will read your comments and letters. And honestly, I think Elizabeth's great advice can apply to all of us even outside the context of the credit union movement. It's just, it's so easy to get caught up in all the noise, and maybe we'd all be well served by keeping our focus on our immediate community, by serving our community to the best of our ability, and then engaging in advocacy where it will really have the greatest impact.

Kerala:
Well, thanks for joining us today for another great episode. The Remarkable Credit Union is brought to you by PixelSpoke, a digital marketing agency that works with credit unions to create user-friendly, high-converting, award-winning websites. As a B Corp, an employee-owned cooperative, we believe that business can and should be a force for good. You can learn more and check out our work at PixelSpoke.coop. That's PixelSpoke, all one word .C-O-O-P. Until the next time, I wish you the best of luck in making your credit union remarkable.