Westerra Credit Union CEO Shares His CU Career Journey at GAC

Some in the credit union community dream of becoming CEO. Of course, being CEO means you need to have a keen sense of strategy, a superb relationship building skills (particiularly with boards), and a high-level understanding of the many facets that go into daily operations.

Our Co-Founder/Publisher/Editor Sarah Snell Cooke got the chance to talk to CEO of Westerra Credit Union Steve Schmidle at GAC 2024 to talk about his journey to the CEO position, Westerra’s 90th anniversary, and what it all means for the credit union’s future.

Read the full transcript below:

Discolsure: Transcript is automatically generated

Sarah Cooke 00:01

Welcome, everybody to The Credit Union Connection. We're here live at the Governmental Affairs Conference 2024. Sitting here with Steve from Westerra Credit Union, I'm going to let you do a more complete introduction of yourself. So go ahead, everybody. My

Steve Schmidle 00:37

name is Steve Schmidle, CEO at Westerra Credit Union in Denver, Colorado, you know, to build a $2 billion credit union, it's about to celebrate our 90th birthday as a credit union in May. Yeah,

Sarah Cooke 00:49
that's great 90 years, and keeping the credit union relevant over the 90 years, obviously, it's a lot of work, right? We're working

Steve Schmidle 00:56

on some media, and it's all based around the idea of 90 years young, because we understand that to remain relevant. You gotta you got to be different, you got to be forward and you know, forward focused. And always thinking to yourself in the next form, so we're, we're taking it to heart. And yeah, we've made a lot of improvements over the years, we've got a lot more to make.

Sarah Cooke 01:15
Well, and you're relatively new to the to the job. So talk about that shift.

Steve Schmidle 01:24

Yeah, it's been quite a shift. It was one that I was working towards, for 20 years that I've been in the industry, I realized when I, when I got to credit unions from banking, that it was different, and that and that this was something where somebody who's purpose driven and wanted to make a difference in the community and in their world could do that in a finance job, which I had never felt on the banking side. So yeah, those 20 years I've been kind of working towards and trying to broaden my resume and get this opportunity someday. I was fortunate that about a year ago, that opportunity did happen. And I got to do it in my hometown, not my hometown, but where I've lived for a long time of Denver, Colorado.

Sarah Cooke 02:06

And, yeah, one of those things that you and I were kind of chatting about earlier on, is, you know, getting to that CEO level or even C suite, like you hear a lot of talk about, like gaps in skill sets of people rising up to those levels. How did you kind of look at that, as you were pursuing your career? Yeah, I

Steve Schmidle 02:33

grew up on the on the finance side of the business, financial analyst, Comptroller accounting, risk. And I felt, I realized at some point that, that I had to change the, my reputation as the numbers guy, very important position and very important knowledge to have to help an organization run, but you want to get cornered as a numbers guy, either, because you're typically thought of as not strategic, not for and looking at it, willing to take risks or weigh risks or build a brand all the things right, a bigger job requires. So you know, you know, halfway through my career, I'd say maybe maybe the first third of my career in credit unions, I was just, I was the numbers guy. But then I started asking for just opportunities, you know, somebody leaves the organization, and I asked to do what they were doing, and just take it on. So got me into things like strategic planning, help, you know, running the strategic planning process PMO, or E-excellence, some of the things that are a little bit outside of typical finance persons responsibility, and I got to take that on and show that I had a different side to me, and that I could do more, and I wanted to do more. Yeah. And it was more just at being a little bit hungry and taking some risks. Yeah,

Sarah Cooke 03:50
well, and that's important, too, to, to ask for the opportunity, right? Because some they aren't

going to necessarily be handed to you. That's for sure. Some

Steve Schmidle 03:58

of the things I asked for I didn't get Yeah, I got enough of them that I yeah, that I could start to build out a little broader resume.

Sarah Cooke 04:05

Yeah. And I totally get where you're coming from with not being pigeon holed, because I had been a journalist for so long. And when I became, excuse me, when I became publisher, it was like, people still saw me as a writer. And I was like, Well, I've been doing product development all along. I've been doing like this strategic planning. Same kind of thing. And so I ended up like, gotta go get that MBA, just so people know. I got the letters behind my name. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a huge shift to change when you got the brand already building in a certain direction. So what is what are what are some of your initiatives, as you're, you know, settling into the CEO, the CEO position and taking some making some changes at the credit union probably. Yeah,

Steve Schmidle 04:51

yeah. I think this has been a tough year. I was CFO for four years before I took the CEO job. So I knew that the shop I knew that the team and the organization and we had in those four years, changed a lot, we had a pretty aggressive strategic plan. And we moved a lot of cheese and spent a lot of money to try to try to modernize the organization, especially for that next generation of members. So that along with the economy that we've been facing this past year, really made, you know, this past year, a focus time on going back to the basics and integrating everything that we had done. And it's one thing to stand up a new online banking system or a new CRM, or whatever it might be, but actually making it better and more efficient, both for staff and employees and members. That that's another thing altogether. So you know, this, this past year has been more about, you know, finishing that integration, getting getting the experience, right, measuring a little better, you know, how it's working, finding gaps, talking to members listening, and putting together that roadmap for how we take the next step, which is going to be maybe not such a heavy lift on individual tools or technologies, but more about building the infrastructure that keeps it running and, and keeps it improving,

Sarah Cooke 06:13

right, because when we're talking about, you know, digital transformation, doing it at a strategic level, you know, knowing where you're ending up where you want to end up rather than, Oh, let chatbot here and you know, whatever there. So yeah, looking at that at a more strategic level is super important. And I, you were talking earlier about, you know, some upgrades to your tech stack. What do you all, particularly focusing on?

Steve Schmidle 06:38

Yeah, yeah, I mean, over the past five years, now, we've, we've changed about everything except our core, new online banking, new CRM, a lot of online account opening, we, you know, we recognize that, even if you get a warm lead on a member, if it's, especially if it's a younger member, that their, their willingness to take that recommendation from their parents or their friends is going to come down to how easy the experience is and Yeah, and so we spend a lot of time building out that OAO experience, and we need to do so even more. So for more products and more members. So it's been everything, we started with data, we understood that, you know, data is kind of the key of making things easy and making them quick and making the right decisions with the data. So we spent a lot of time in the early days just building out that that middleware layer to help our systems talk to one another. But you know, we've got, we've got a long way to go, we've got a good team ready to do it.

Sarah Cooke 07:33

That's awesome. Yeah, because the data is like the the basis the platform of, you know, how are you going to use it for marketing? How are or why are... Why is it important? What are the trends that you're seeing in the data? You know, so important? So what do you think of the show so far? Anything anything interesting? Look what piqued your what's piqued your interest?

Steve Schmidle 07:56

Yeah, I haven't been to GAC in many years, it's been great to kind of be here and feel the energy again, and the whole industry coming together. It's just one of those shows that really, really brings, you know, everybody from across the country together and great, great learning opportunity. You know, the themes, probably same themes, you're hearing a lot of talk about CFPB. And what's happening with fees and junk fees. And just yesterday, I think they they announced a safe harbor limit on credit card overdraft or credit card, late fees. So you know, it's a lot of talk about that what the election is going to do, which way it might go, depending on how the election goes. And then there's a lot of technology talk as there always is AI, of course. Big, big topic of conversation right now. And how do we harness it? How do we protect ourselves if we do use it and make sure we're ready to compete in the future?

Sarah Cooke 08:54

Yeah, and again, getting to that purpose of why you're using AI and not just the buzzword, because everybody's saying it. And it all boils down. I think in the end to member service, like all of it should be helping you serve your members better. But also your employees, you mentioned that as well. Like it makes making there's a war for talent right now making their jobs easier. Not a bad thing.

Steve Schmidle 09:17

Yeah, you have the right people, I think it can be the one in the same thing, right? You make it easier for them to serve the member, if they're the right people that they want to serve the member, they want to help the member want to spend more time giving you advice than looking up the answer. So it's about you know, helping them do do what they're there to do.

Sarah Cooke 09:36

Members, right. And if somebody has to bang their head against the wall, because they've, you know, the data they need is on 50 different screens.

Steve Schmidle 09:46
Yeah, look through a pile of procedures to find the answer, it's not going to be a great experience for either,

Sarah Cooke 09:51

right, right. I'm really seriously one. Credit unions to become employers of choice, as well as the first choice for for financial services. But yeah, I think a lot of times we need to make sure we focus our employees. But so how are things in Colorado? How are things gonna feel out there it's

Steve Schmidle 10:12

good, Colorado is a great place to be. I just enjoy living there. What drew me out, there was just the the ethos of it and the experience of being afterwards and such. So, on one hand, that's great, it's growing very, very competitive. Cost of Living isn't as low as it used to be, you know, it's probably not California levels, but it's getting close. You know, it's getting expensive to live there. So we're helping our members with building out mortgage capabilities and helping them with financial literacy, really giving them the advice and learning they need, which takes us back to our purpose, right, our purposes, we exist to teach one another to prosper We're a teachers credit union, so we, we we're about to release a new financial literacy platform that will help not only individual members who are looking for, you know, some segment of learning, you know, not a big drawn out webinar or seminar, but something more condensed that will be delivered soon here this summer. And then it'll also give our teachers which we have a lot of in our membership base for content for their classrooms, right for literacy class. Right. Yeah, teachings that they're providing. So yeah, it's it's Colorado's a great place to be it's, it's a difficult environment, as most large metro areas are, you know, it's competitive. But, you know, our members are our supporters of Westerra and supporters of credit unions in general. And it's been a great opportunity to continue to serve them. Yeah,

Sarah Cooke 11:45

yeah. And, you know, as you were talking about the financial literacy programs, so important, especially, you know, data, everybody cites, is 60, plus percent of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and along with those are making more than $100,000 a year, but as the cost of living goes up, $100,000 isn't necessarily go as far as it used

Steve Schmidle 12:11
to only have one person working in the household.

Sarah Cooke 12:12
Right, right, absolutely. So what do you think? What would you advise somebody you know, as a new CEO, advise somebody who's coming up and looking to become CEO at a credit union.

Steve Schmidle 12:31

You know, what I've learned on the job this past year, and what I got to see a little bit getting ready for this job was the importance of understanding the governance process, present once or twice to a board and get get a sense for how the meetings go, but really understanding the importance of the communication and the alignment required between a CEO and his or her board, or his or her team, executive team and leadership team as a whole. And it's, it's a people thing, right? It's not a knowledge thing, doesn't matter how many basis points you can count on the back of your hand. It's, it's about how do you work with people communicate, align work through the issues, or the misunderstandings, the the the misalignment that might be out there and bring everybody back together to move towards the same goal? All those arrows pointing in the right direction?

Sarah Cooke 13:27

Yeah, I'm Vice Chair my credit union. No, yeah, yeah, no. And we we hired not a first time CEO, but a newer CEO, a few years back, and just Yeah, I saw it through the process, from the other perspective, of course of doing the interview process and, and seeing, like, by the time you're presenting to the board, you're not talking a lot about your basis points, or whatever. I mean, are the gentleman who's our current CEO, he's talking about, I grew up my dad's my hero, and this is why and this is what it taught me, like, it ends up, you know, relevant to the to the job, and you know, taught me hard work, that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's a lot more about personality and the interaction really feel like you can work with that person or those people because it goes both ways, you know? Because if the CEO isn't gonna be happy, then Ain't nobody gonna be. So. Anyway, so, final thoughts. What do you think the credit union audience should know? What do you think is most important for credit unions right now? Right now?

Steve Schmidle 14:38

Yeah, I think we're at a I've heard a lot of talk about how we're at this point in, in innovation in technology change that probably has only happened a couple of times and in history. Somebody was just saying something about 100 years ago, we had electricity, cars, automobiles, and there's a third thing that all What happened at the same time, it just totally changed the way we thought as as a society. And with AI and blockchain and some of these things that are changing, especially the financial industry. We, from our viewpoint, it might be one of those periods again. Yeah. So I think it's staying aware, right, as a credit union, we can't always be front and center and tip of the spear and that kind of change. But understanding what that will mean for us what it means for our members, how we can support them through that. And that's what ultimately I think, will produce the relevancy that that differentiates ourselves. It's been really hard I was mentioned to you before, it's really hard to really zero in on a value proposition these days, when, when the competition is and the advancements are happening so quickly. But you know, at our at our core is a credit union is the ability to be there for our members to help them through change, and prepare them for the future. And I don't think this, this period will be any different. It's about remaining relevant and, and being there for them.

Sarah Cooke 16:04
and that's that's the focus where it needs to stay. Right.

Steve Schmidle 16:08
That's what's brought us along these past 90 years for Westerra. And, you know, trust is, is what we're all you know, the bedrock of everything we're doing. Absolutely. Well

Sarah Cooke 16:19
thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it Steve, thank you