Leading a Growing Credit Union with Gary Golden

Intro: Get your 2025 off to a great start and join us for our upcoming networking event. Come out to the American Helicopter Museum in Westchester on Wednesday, January 22nd for a fun engaging happy hour. Connect and catch up with others in our Start Local community over good food, local beer, delicious wines, and non-alcoholic drinks. As always, attendance is free but registration is required. You can register on our website at [startlocal.co]. That’s [startlocal.co]. See you there.

Liam Dempsey: Welcome to Start Local, where we talk with business owners, leaders of nonprofits and other members of our community focused on doing business in and around Chester County, Pennsylvania. Each episode will provide insight into the local business scene and tell you about opportunities to connect with and support businesses and nonprofits in your local area.

Joe Casabona: The Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce promotes trade, commerce, industry, and sustainable economic development while supporting a diverse and growing marketplace. The chamber is proud to partner with the Start Local podcast to raise the profile of businesses and nonprofits throughout Chester County. Learn more about the chamber at sccc.com. That’s scccc.com.

Liam Dempsey: Hey. I’m Liam Dempsey, and I am here today with my colleague, Erik Gudmundson. We are recording another podcast. Erik, how are you today?

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, yeah. I’m doing well. I’m very happy because I’ve been doing the rain dance for the last month, and we are indeed seeing some rain here over the last few days. So I’m happy that it’s finally working.

Liam Dempsey:  Did you do a rain dance, like, mid-last week? Because, oh my gosh. We get a ton of rain at the end. You’re very good.

Erik Gudmundson: It’s a daily ritual these days. They’re trying to make up for the drought. Yes.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Hey, everybody listening. Just a quick reminder that we are hosting another Start Local networking event. We’re gonna gather on Wednesday, January 22nd in 2025 from 5 to 7 PM. Go ahead, Erik.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, indeed. That’s very, very true. January 22nd, 5 to 7 PM. Join us at the American Helicopter Museum in Westchester. Attendance is free at all of our networking events, but registration is required. We do about 3 a year, and, it’s always exciting to see who’s in the room. It’s, it’s always a well-attended event. So it’s fun. Come on out and meet some other guests who have been on the podcast and meet some other listeners.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. Absolutely. Please do join us. And folks, part of the reason we are able to put on such fun and valuable networking events is frankly through sponsorship. We have businesses and nonprofits that are eager to support the community-building efforts that we’re leading on here with the podcast. 

And in the interest of transparency, we just wanna make it really clear that today’s guest from Propel Credit Union, is a sponsor. The Propel Credit Union sponsored our September event, and for reasons that you’ll hear in our upcoming conversation, have generously come in again as a sponsor for our upcoming event at the helicopter museum.

Erik Gudmundson: And one reality that people who have attended our networking events have probably already observed, but occasionally, you meet some people that are doing some interesting things, where they have an interesting perspective on life here in the Chester County area. And that’s one of the reasons we invited our guest today.

Liam Dempsey: Absolutely. Today, we welcome Gary Golden, CEO with Propel Credit Union. Welcome, Gary. Thanks for joining us.

Gary Golden: Thanks for having me.

Erik Gudmundson: Gary, it’s a pleasure to have you. Thank you.

Liam Dempsey: Well, let’s jump right into the questions. It’s a busy day, and let’s make good use of our time. 

With a history going back over 70 years, Propel Credit Union has been in business for a long, long time. Yet it’s a newcomer to doing business in Chester County. In fact, I attended your, ribbon-cutting ceremony at your new branch in Westchester back in September. There were a lot of people there. That was fun. What brought you to Chester County, and what are your plans for serving our local community?

Gary Golden: So as you mentioned, the credit union’s been around a long time. 72 years, actually. Started in 1952, with our headquarters in the Ridley Park area in Delaware County. And, that had served the credit union very well for a long period of time. But, we had become a community credit union a number of years ago and wanted to figure out how to expand. Because when you have a good product and a good value proposition, good services, you wanna try to share them with as many people as you possibly can. And, we decided we wanted to get into Chester County because, interestingly enough, Westchester, which, as you mentioned, is our newest branch office.

If you look at our existing demographics for our existing members, Westchester is, like, the 4th or 5th highest ZIP code in terms of population for our existing members. So even though we had a Delaware County focus, we had a lot of crossover, coming out of the Westchester area. So it made sense to put a location there as we knew we were going to be expanding. Westchester is obviously also the county seat, and a lot of small businesses in that area, and that’s something that, we are very, very focused on.

Erik Gudmundson: I wanna dig a little deeper into that. We can see in your logo and branding that you have a connection to helicopters. In fact, that’s why we approached you about the sponsorship of our January networking event. So can you tell us a little bit more about your business history and how you’re connected to the helicopter industry?

Gary Golden: So, as I mentioned, we started in 1952 as the Payaseki Credit Union. It’s the Payaseki Helicopter Organization, and they had started a credit union for their employees. That company eventually became Vertol, which became Boeing Vertol, and then eventually just Boeing. And the credit union evolved with that company and, did so very successfully for many decades. 

As I mentioned earlier, we became a community credit union in 2016. And by that, I mean that we expanded our membership capabilities to anyone in the Delaware County area. So you didn’t just have to be an employee of the Boeing helicopter there in in Ridley Park as you had for several decades previously. So when we expanded into Chester County, not a lot of people knew Boeing or Boeing Helicopter, and we were concerned that people would continue to think they had to be an employee or have some kind of relationship with the company in order to join.

But since that’s not the case, we needed to figure out how could we rebrand a little bit, be more general and more inviting to people in the community, and yet still pay homage to our our history a little bit.

So, after a lot of back and forth, we developed Propel, which could be short for propeller. It could also talk about, using it in a different way in terms of propelling your financial future, and there’s a little marketing that you can do with that. So, it was well received in the community, and we did our rebrand, but we kept the logo because there is a lot of crossover between, you know, propelling, lifting, raising, all of those, positive types of terms that you can apply to your financial condition, hopefully.

Liam Dempsey: And as a marketing and design consultant and graphic designer, I like your rebrand. Well done. Congrats to those that made that happen.

Gary Golden: Thank you.

Liam Dempsey: So, Gary, you shared a few times now that you’re a community chartered credit union. And, for folks that don’t appreciate that, that means you have members. And as I read on your website in advance of this conversation, 85100 and change, in terms of members versus, like, a publicly traded bank or even a private bank that has customers. How does your status at a county chartered credit union shape your philosophy and your approach as a financial institution?

Gary Golden: So as you mentioned, we have members, not customers. But in addition to that, we also do not have shareholders or stockholders. So I never have to worry about my stock price. I never have to worry about an investor calling me up saying we’re not making enough money. We’re not paying enough dividends, things like that. So we operate exclusively for our members. They are technically owners in the credit union, so that is the largest distinction between us and any bank. 

But as far as our philosophy and approach, I think the most telling example is that most banks when they develop a new product or a new service, they do it because they figured out they can make money offering that product or service.

Our approach is a little bit different in that, we look for products and services that we think can provide a value proposition for our members. And if we find one that’ll do it, we’ll find out we’ll figure out a way to offer that product and service, and then maybe reverse engineer it a little bit, so we can offer without losing our shirt in the process. Right? We still don’t wanna lose money, but it’s not about making money so much as it is about providing the value proposition for our members. And that’s a very distinct difference from any bank you’ll ever do business with.

Erik Gudmundson: As we begin 2025, a lot of organizations use the start of a new year to take it as an opportunity to create economic forecasts. And what do they think is gonna happen or change in the coming year? And this year is a little bit different than your typical year, and that we just had a presidential election. We have a new president coming in, a whole new administration. That probably leads to some uncertainty in the financial markets. How are you preparing for the new administration in 2025?

Gary Golden: So we’re pretty excited, pretty optimistic, and that’s principally because our members are pretty optimistic. We deal with a lot of small businesses. That’s kind of our bread and butter. And, they were a little nervous, the way things had been going over the last couple of years. I think what you saw what happened in the pandemic and just coming out of the pandemic, small businesses tended to get crushed. The larger conglomerates all did very, very well.

So, that seemed to continue even after the pandemic had sort of settled, and we got that in the rearview mirror. There was still a lot of uncertainty, what would happen, what the regulatory environment gonna look like, what the rate environment gonna look like, is inflation gonna be controllable, all of those kinds of things.

And I think now you’re getting a hey. Maybe there’s an opportunity here to turn the page on some of that and focus on small businesses. And I think people are a little bit more confident now than they were previously. So if our members are optimistic, then we’re gonna be optimistic. 

The banking in general is sort of recession-proof in a sense that there’s there’s still business to be had. You still people still use their checking accounts. They still use their debit cards. They may have less money in their checking account to use, but they still use the banking services and the credit union services regardless of what the economic environment is in the marketplace. So we’re gonna be providing those services regardless of what is the administration is doing, what the fed is doing, what the rates are, but, certainly, what we’re seeing right now is a lot of optimism.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, it sounds like in, you know, previous conversations as well as this conversation, you have a lot of experience in the financial industry in general. How did you get started, you know, with a credit union personally, and how did you, become the CEO of Propel? It’s not every day that, you know, people are going to school and say, you know what? I wanna be the CEO of a credit union someday. So I’m curious to learn a little bit more about your personal story of what got you into credit unions and, what what got you into the CEO role itself.

Gary Golden: Okay. So, yeah, I don’t know anybody that actually said that in college, by the way, that they wanted to be a CEO of a credit union. But, it’s a great it is a great gig, regardless. 

So, yeah, I’ve been at banking now for, this is my 40th year, actually. So just got into it early, and haven’t figured out a way to get out of it. Right? So, I started in the credit union industry, after many years of working with larger national and even international banks. 

And what I learned from that was it’s filled with bureaucracy. There’s a lot of politics. And it just after a while, it kinda grinds on you. You can do it when you’re younger. You have the energy. You can kinda fight through it. You can make some money. But, eventually, you find yourself thinking about, you know, what am I really doing? What’s my purpose here? Other than to make a decent living? 

So, in 2013, I decided it was time to check out of the larger organizations, and I was looking for an opportunity to do something maybe more on my own. And I knew my predecessor here, at Propel, a gentleman by the name of Phil Travellini, who I had worked with literally 30 years prior. And we had stayed in touch, and, he was a little older than I was. He was getting ready to retire, and, thought I would be a good complement to his organization and somebody that could help make the transition from a credit union, specifically for the Boeing organization into the community charter, and then eventually continue to grow it.

So, we got together and realized that I was much more aligned with the culture, philosophy, and ideology of the credit union being for the members, and not in it for profit, but in it for the people and the purpose. And, it was something that I just naturally gravitated towards.

Liam Dempsey: Thanks for sharing that. We touched on this earlier, but banking rights regulations, we know they’re complicated, and they certainly can be. Opening up new accounts is always stressful whether we’re doing it for ourselves or we’re doing it for a business or a nonprofit. It’s tedious if nothing else. Get it? It has to happen, but it is tedious, and it’s stressful. All those things that say you have to be completely business, and what does this word mean, and am I filling it outright? 

From what we’ve heard in conversations with you before today, Gary, it’s pretty clear that you’re focused on providing straightforward and transparent financial services and to use probably one of your marketing phrases without the bureaucratic hassle. Can you break that down? What does that actually mean day to day for folks who are interested in opening new accounts? You know, we all have business banking needs or personal banking needs. What does that look like for you?

Gary Golden: Sure. So that’s something that we focus on quite a bit. Our tone or how we communicate with our members and our prospective members. We want it to be straightforward. We want it to be, you know, people talking to other people. When we opened our Westchester office, one of the first things that we added there was a little coffee bar, because the thought process is to come in, have a cup of coffee, have a chat. Let’s make, banking, which can be complicated and stressful. Let’s make it as easy as just having a cup of coffee.

So let’s just sit down with some people and get to know them, and that’s all it really is. It’s just people helping people. We just happen to be in the money business. So we don’t like bureaucracy, we don’t like fine print. And as you can maybe tell from this conversation, I’m just an ordinary guy, just trying to do my best for everybody, but it really is about the people, and it’s about the relationships. 

So we provide transaction services, but we are definitely not a transaction-focused organization. I’ll tell you a quick story. To prove that, when we first opened up our Glen Mills office where it is now, we were looking for a larger location and a space with a little bit better visibility.

And I met with the landlord of a, he had a bank that was there, that the prior tenant had left. And he said you’re gonna love this location. It’s perfect. It’s exactly where you wanna be. And the best thing about it is it has 4 drive-thru, and you can’t get those today. So take advantage. It’s a really great thing.And I’ll put this in time perspective for you. This is in 2019. 

So we opened that office in November of 2019. But before we did that, I went out. I looked at the place. Of course, it had to be completely remodified to be more modern. It had the kind of that eighties banker feel, but I spoke to I said, look. This is the perfect location for me, but you gotta do me one favor before I take it. He said, what’s that? I said, you gotta take down all those drive-thru.

He said, I’m sorry. What did you just say? I said, I need you to take down all those drive-thru. I don’t want them. We don’t do them. And he said, no. No. You don’t understand. People love them.

I said, no. Look. You’re a member too. And he was. The landlord was a member. I said, you know how we operate. You know what our model is. Right? We’re about relationships, not transactions. What’s a drive-thru? It’s a transaction. There’s nothing else you’re doing there. Right? 

So how can I say I’m about relationships, but then do transaction behaviors? Doesn’t make any sense. Right? So, we’re gonna stay true. We’re gonna walk the walk. We took down the drive-thru. We don’t have any drive-thrus at any of our locations, and we won’t as long as I’m here because that’s not who we are and what we do.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s a bold answer, especially, you know, with the pandemic hindsight that we all have at this point. Because I think a lot of people, you know, might have wanted, some sort of drive-thru during the the pandemic. Was there ever a moment of regret where you’re like, oh my gosh? We need to put those drive-thrus back in?

Gary Golden: So, no. There really wasn’t because my assumption was that was gonna be a temporary situation. And, you know, we did remain open through that period. And I did get a call from the landlord in about early April saying, I bet you wish you had those drive-thrus now, don’t you? But I can honestly tell him if I was opening that office in April of 2020, the county have done the exact same thing.

Liam Dempsey: I’m really glad that you shared that story, Gary. Because as I said, I was at the opening in Westchester, and I noticed there was no drive-thru. And I thought that was interesting. I wonder if that’s just a facility that was available. Is it a post-COVID thing? Nobody you know, I just didn’t know. So knowing the backstory, that’s great. I love it. Thanks for sharing that.

Gary Golden: Sure.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, keeping with the theme about the people and the community and the focus on the people and also the fact that you wanna do something that’s mission-driven. Back in county 2019, you also created a 501c3, to support the most at-risk youth in Delaware and Chester County. The charity is called Kids Foundation. Would you share with us the mission of the Kids Foundation, and tell us how the foundation works to make a difference for these children?

Gary Golden: Sure. So this is something that was very personal to me. Every nonprofit that I had ever been part of was always around children or families, and, it’s something that I believe the nuclear family is very important in our communities. And children, obviously, are the most at risk in almost any scenario, but what we discovered, and what I have discovered through the years of working in business and dealing with some nonprofits, there are a lot of great nonprofits out there. They do a lot of great work, all of which should be very supportive. There’s a lot in the of health-related. Right? So there’s cancer charities, there’s, for pediatric cancer and other pediatric illnesses and things, all of which are very, very important to do those kinds of research and things, and they need support. 

But, what occurred to me was there’s a lot of young children who are also exposed to abuse, neglect, that’s domestic violence, sexual abuse, things like that. And I think what frustrated me the most is I may not be able to stop pediatric cancer from happening, or a birth defect from happening, or, something. But, abuse, and neglect, that’s something that doesn’t need to exist. That’s a choice, and it happens in our communities, even in all of, in our neighborhoods today, even more so than most people realize. 

So, I became very passionate about trying to do something to help this, and, we started the Kids Foundation to support those kids, raise money, awareness, and all those things for the fact that, yes, even in what we think is our, uppity neighborhood or our high-end neighborhood, there are children who are victims of abuse and neglect, and, we need to do something about it. 

So the the other leg to the foundation is one of education because we believe education is the great equalizer. So we focus a lot on low and moderate-income educational opportunities for children in low and moderate-income areas, to give them support and an educational background that they’ll be able to take care of themselves and, manage as they roll into adulthood. 

So those are 2 areas that we that we focus on because we believe we can make a difference. And, you know, as a father and grandfather myself, this is something that I’m just naturally drawn to, and we’re gonna continue this effort and this mission.

And it’s pretty easy to get support for it, because it’s not like people say, domestic violence, No. I don’t care about that. Everybody wants to support it. And when you’re talking about kids, and they are the future. So, you know, we need to get this right for them.

Liam Dempsey: I really appreciate you saying a few times in your answer there that abuse and domestic violence happen in every neighborhood in greater volumes than we probably appreciate or are willing to admit because it’s a real problem everywhere, and the way you’ve painted that makes it clear that we all have work to do. So thank you for that, and thanks for the work that the foundation is doing. 

Gary Golden: Thank you. 

Liam Dempsey: Gary, in advance of today’s recording, I was doing my homework, and I caught your conversation with Rich Edwards over on the Mindspan Systems podcast. You and get Rich spoke back in February, and I was really intrigued by your marketing outreach pro plans. I won’t quote you verbatim necessarily, but you talked kind of about boots on the ground is how you wanted to help the local community get to know Propel. And I wonder if you’re doing that boots on the ground here in Chester County as you moved, And then also if you can kind of explain by what you meant about boots on the ground.

Gary Golden: Sure. So boots on the ground just means people talking to people. So there’s a lot of different ways you can get your message out. There’s a lot of marketing and advertising that you can do. You can be on the radio. You can be on television. You can hang billboards. You can do mailings.

And we’ve done all of those things in our history, but they tend to not move the needle, particularly for a smaller organization like us. Our marketing budget is not what Capital One has. Right? I can’t hire Jennifer Garner to pitch my credit cards. So, I’ve gotta do it a different way. And the way that I would rather do it is I would rather spend that money instead of hiring somebody and putting an advertisement on television. I would rather actually pay somebody to go out into the community, press the flesh, as we say, and get to know people and get to talk to people face to face. Because, you know, despite everybody’s focus on things like social media yeah. We have some social media presence as well. But, as I mentioned earlier, we’re truly about relationships.

And that means real relationships, not fake likes or anything like that. It’s all about people getting to know someone. How do you get to know somebody if you’re not actually speaking to them face to face?

So, yeah. That’s our model. We’re gonna continue to do that, and we’re gonna continue to get the best people we can in those in those positions, and get that messaging out there. 

And what happens, if you do it right, and you take care of your members, they become your best business development people. Because literally 80% of our new business comes from referrals of existing members. So that means we must be taking care of our members because they wanna share the good experiences that they’re having. And then they told 2 friends, and they told 2 friends, and so on and so on.

And it grows that way. And that’s much not only is it cheaper, but it’s infinitely more effective.

Erik Gudmundson: I think, as a lot of people think about credit unions, they really think about it in individual terms. You know, should I be a member of a credit union? Or which credit union should I be a member of? But the reality is a lot of your recent growth, I understand, has been small businesses. And so I’m curious how Propel is working to address the banking needs of small businesses, and what specific challenges do they face, where can you help?

Gary Golden: So, Credit unions in general tend to be focused on on retail consumers, and, you know, we were built on that as well, as I mentioned, starting out with the employees of the of Boeing helicopter and whatnot. But, I’m a commercial banker by trade, so I’ve rought a lot of that with me. But I realized that as we got into the community, particularly when we started in Delaware County, the community is made up of tons of small businesses. There’s lots of mom-and-pop shops. There’s lots of, you know, contractors, and plumbers, and electricians, and, you know, auto repair guys, and mechanics, and things. And those are the types of people that tend to get ignored or at least underserved when it comes to the larger, banking institutions.

So if we say we’re a community, community-focused credit union, we have to serve the community. Well, that community is filled with small businesses.

Westchester is no different. A lot of areas in Chester County are no different. So it made sense for us to focus on that because it’s something that we knew. The people that we bring on to the organization as employees have that background and understanding. 

And since not a lot of people do it, there was an obvious need there. There’s an obvious niche to have these small businesses, know they can come to us, get the professional advice and products and services that they that need to help manage their business, and do so on that personal level that they’re not gonna get anywhere else.

Erik Gudmundson: And I imagine it’s quite a balance these days between that personal level, the relationships that you were talking about in in earlier answers, and the need for people to wanna be self-service and technology-driven and things like that. And I imagine sometimes those goals work in parallel and sometimes \they might appear to be at odds with each other. 

So, I’d like to know how you approach that technological edge and and how you go about, you know, doing things like rolling out new mobile banking apps and such like that. I assume you probably don’t have a team of developers. You’re probably buying some solutions off the shelf. But how do you go about selecting that and maintaining your edge that that makes you propel?

Gary Golden: Okay. So, yeah. That’s a balancing act all of the time, and I really have to thread the needle there because I don’t wanna lose the relationship and the face to face and the personal stuff. But the fact of the matter is, things move fast. People are busy. Money moves fast, if you will. So you’ve got to give people that self-service option. You’ve gotta have a slick app. We do. You never have to come in if you don’t want to. We hope you do, but you can do everything from your phone, open accounts, transfer money, and apply for loans. You’d never really have to come in. 

And if I’m being totally honest, if I didn’t work at the Credit Union, I would probably be one of those guys that rarely goes into a branch. But, you know, I’ve embraced that on a personal level, so I wanna make sure that our members have access to that. 

So, what we did, was we spent a lot of time focused on finding the right partners who can help us provide that proper digital strategy, and those kinds of slick apps to stay competitive. Because at the end of the day, it’s a very competitive environment out there, banking, credit unions, financial services, incredibly, competitive.

Because you’re not just have banks and credit unions, now you have these fintechs, and all these other companies, non-banks offering, similar services. So, everybody is in that space. So you definitely have to keep up. 

And, what we did, we partnered with a vendor, that, we actually have more than a typical supplier. We didn’t just go out and hire somebody to do it. We actually invested in a company that was a startup. And, we’re partners, literally, financially and otherwise, that we will continue to lay out together what our future digital strategy looks like, and make sure that we have the technology and that full stack of services that people, not county, need, but quite frankly expect right now.

Liam Dempsey: I wanna stick with the balance topic here for a bit. And you just shared about how you, you know, you are embracing technology. You have to, and you did it in a pretty aggressive way, if I say, where you parter with a provider rather than just using a vendor. Aggressive in and kind of all in, not necessarily marketplace aggressive.

But you just opened up a new brick-and-mortar, branch down in Westchester. And I’m wondering when you’re thinking about the provision of services, and, yes, there are definitely folks who wanna meet face to face. But what are you doing that’s different or special or more enticing? You talked a little bit about come have a coffee. But I wonder, what other kind of approaches are you doing? Are you training your staff to be particularly welcoming or something like that? Do you have a line with the best bakery in town, and they drop off a dozen or 2 every morning? What are you doing particularly to attract younger generations? You know, those that might be by default all about the mobile app, not interested in person. How are you going about that?

Gary Golden: So that’s obviously one of the reasons why you do have to have the right technology, and the right apps and things because the younger generation has grown up with that. They haven’t known life without it. Right? 

So, when I started in banking, none of that stuff existed, so it was all branches. And so we do have to balance that out. But what we’ve seen is that small businesses in particular, they enjoy having a presence. They enjoy seeing that we’re there. The branch, the financial center as we call them, they represent not just a place where you can come in and meet somebody and talk about your accounts or whatnot, but it’s also just a visual reminder that we’re there, that we’re there in the community, and that we’re just as the business just like, the guy across the street. Right? It’s just like the auto, shop across the street. We just happen to be in the money business, but we’re still a small business operator in their community just like they are. So, and that, you know, that presence is what validates that.

And as far as, you know, the staff, of course, they’re selected for their personality, and their fit, and all of those kinds of things, of course. But, you know, at the end of the day, we talk about this all the time. As you know, we talked about the rebrand earlier, how we went from the Boeing Helicopters Credit Union to Propel, and we have the new logo, and the signs on the side of the building, and that’s fine. But our brand is not the sign on the building. Our brand is the experience that you have when you come in and talk to us. Our brand is what you say about us when you’re talking to other people. 

So it’s not the logo on the side of the building. But, we still need to be there, and, it’s something that’s very important to us. We’re gonna continue to open branches. We have a schedule, and we’re gonna continue to open branches in Chester County, and then ultimately expand into a third county and beyond.

Liam Dempsey: So I have a question about technology and the interplay with technology and people. In that, you know, technology is great until the service that we need hasn’t been built into the app, and it could be a more unique need, you know, changing account names or dealing with the passing of former owners to new owners, whether that’s through sale or through the passing of the owner quite literally from in-depth. 

And certainly with bigger institutions, that which the branch staff understands is not at all what the telephone support understands, let alone the the app support knows. I’d be interested in if you had any kind of stories around how you folks deal with that kinda disconnect between what’s available in the app and people’s needs and then they come to the branch. How do you resolve all of that? Because it sounds like you’re so focused on relationships and understanding that at the very least, have a cup of coffee, sit down, yell or shout or just vent for a bit, and we’ll take it because we get it. It’s a frustrating situation even if it’s not necessarily our fault. I just welcome your thoughts on that. How do you go about dealing with that tricky situation?

Gary Golden: So consistency, is obviously very important, and the experience has to be the same whether they call on the phone, whether they walk into one of our offices, whether they jump online. All of that has to look and feel the same. So we take a lot of effort in making sure that that’s the case. 

We also don’t use third-party call centers or anything like that. It’s when you call, you’re gettin, the same person you would meet in the office when you walk in. If you come into one of our offices, there’s a good chance somebody might be on the phone, and it’s because they’re talking to a member. They’re the people that are there in the trenches, whether you are in their face to face, or whether you’re calling on the phone. 

Same way with the support. If you do have a tech issue, the number that you’ll call, it’s one of us. It’s so you’re gonna get that same consistency and that same experience no matter how you interact with us.

Erik Gudmundson: And to deliver that level of service, it really requires good people. And in order to have good people, it’s challenging, in today’s competitive recruiting environment, particularly when there are so many other financial institutions that are out there in our in our region. So how do you go about finding, hiring, and retaining the best people for Propel?

Gary Golden: So talent acquisition is probably the number one challenge that we have, particularly because we’re continuing to grow. And each time you open up a new office, you generally have to hire a few extra people. 

So, it’s the number one challenge that I think that I have as well. We take a lot of effort to meet the right people, and find the right fit. Every prospect for any position, no matter what it is, whether it’s a lending person, or a frontline person at the branch, could be the janitor, could be anything that you do. You’ll go through a series of interviews. You’re gonna meet a bunch of different people, and you’re going to interview with me. I interview every employee, every prospective employee, before they join because I wanna make sure that they’re gonna fit. Right? 

I got a good piece of advice many years ago from an executive who said, don’t hire for positions. Cast the play, and make sure that you’re getting the right people in the right roles. You can teach them the nuts and bolts of whatever it is that you’re trying to do. It’s one of the reasons why a lot of the people that we hire aren’t actually bankers. Because and those that do that come in, and we’ve hired some. We have a few. I’ve leaked a few in to the organization, but I’ve gotta beat the bank out of them. But, a lot of them, they’ll come in. 

And day 1, I’ll say, look. I know you worked at xyz bank, and you had some experience there. The first thing I want you to do, I want you to forget everything they ever said to you and everything they taught you. Leave it at the door, because I don’t want any of that here. Because I don’t wanna be where you came from. We’re a different organization. We treat people differently. We do things differently, and I can’t erode the culture that we’ve built no matter how much larger we get.

And maintaining culture through growth is very, very challenging, because each time you introduce a new person, you’re increasing risk that somebody’s gonna go sideways on you. But, we spend a lot of time. It’s kind of a grueling process for a small organization, but, it’s important that we stay consistent with that, and that we do hire the best people, not just in terms of their technological ability or their experience, but the people fit and understand our mission, buy into what we’re doing, appreciate the purpose. Because you can get people to do a lot of things if they believe they’re part of a greater purpose. So, when we find those people, we bring them in.

Liam Dempsey: Gary,, we’ve covered a lot of ground today about the various roles and responsibilities that you have as CEO of Propel Credit Union. I expect that, that can be a stressful and time-consuming job. From the way you’re talking about it, it’s clear you like it, clear you enjoy what you’re doing. But you gotta get away at some point. You need to unwind. How are you doing that? What’s your hobby of choice? What do you do when you’re not trying to run a credit union?

Gary Golden: So all the stress that I have is self-inflicted, so that’s a good thing. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t have shareholders calling me, asking me for to raise the stock price, or anything like that. At the end of the day, if I can say, we met the needs of our members, did today matter for them, then, yeah, it was a good day. 

So, I don’t have a lot of the stress that a lot of maybe public company CEOs would have. If I take care of the members, it’s all good. It is time-consuming. There’s no question about that. 

But, in terms of getting away, as I mentioned earlier, as a father and now grandfather, when I was younger, all my kids were into sports and a lot of extracurricular activities, so that was how we unplugged from our busy days, spend the weekend going to sporting events, things like that.

I was involved with a lot of youth athletic organizations as my kids were growing up, but they’re all adults now, and the proud grandfather of 5 amazing human beings. And, they’re now starting to get old enough where they’re getting into it, so we’re starting the cycle all over again.

So that is generally how we spend our free time. My wife and I, spend a lot of time going to sporting events and things like that for the grandkids, and there’s really nothing else I’d rather be doing.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, through the Kids Foundation and Propel’s outreach and community engagement, you are doing a lot for the local community, and we thank you for that. How can the community support Propel?

Gary Golden: Well, they can become members. That’s for sure.

Erik Gudmundson: There’s no shame in that answer whatsoever. Yeah.

Gary Golden: So listen. As I mentioned, all of our growth comes out of referrals and just people talking to one another. So, you know, we support the community. We support our business members. We try to give them a vehicle to reach other businesses and services that they may need as well. We can kinda operate as a network facilitator, and, you know, just being part of that community is very helpful. 

So, but, yeah, at the end of the day, even if they’re not business members with us or, you know, members at all, If they’re operating properly in the community, and they’re doing other things to help support the local businesses, as I said, we’re just one of the local businesses in that community. So, helping everybody else in that community, the rising tide raises all boats philosophy, is something that we obviously, believe in very deeply, and, you know, that would be fine.

So, support your local small businesses, and, that’ll help the community as a whole.

Liam Dempsey: You heard it here, folks. Support your local business. It’s here.

Gary, you’ve talked a lot about the culture that you and your colleagues are trying to maintain, craft, and maintain at Propel, and it’s really focused on members and solving their problems and being a trusted partner and being involved with their day to day needs in some constructive, supportive way. It sounds like it’s probably a pretty good place to work. So I will ask the question, is Propel hiring? And if so, where can folks find the available jobs and the opportunities so that can be cast for their part in the play?

Gary Golden: So they can visit the website, [propellcu.org]. We always have our information about the credit union and, career opportunities there. We’re pretty close to fully staffed. I think we have a position or 2 that are open now. But, as I mentioned, we’re looking at other locations for our next branch as well. So, you know, we’re always looking for the right people. And, you know, as I said, if, you know, if we find the right person, it’s probably a good idea to find a way to get them in inside, because, as we talked about, it’s talent acquisition is hard. So when you come across the right person, for the right role, you should probably do what you can to get them.

Erik Gudmundson: With all this talk about, the community and participating and being engaged with the local community, Would you name a local business or nonprofit that folks should know more about?

Gary Golden: Wow. That’s a tricky question because, you know, we’re in so many different industries. We have, so many different members that come to us in every industry that you can possibly imagine, so we’re very fortunate in that regard. 

One of the areas that we do a lot of is in restaurants and food services. Not a lot of banks do that, particularly ones that start up. We have a number of restaurateurs, and in our Chaz Fort Glen Mills area, Fava, and then Taste and See is a new restaurant that started earlier this year that we helped facilitate with an SBA local to get them up and running. And, the Brick and Brew has locations. It’s a really fantastic gastropub in Malvern Media and Harbour Town.nSo they’re in they’re in both counties. We do a lot of work with organizations like that. Again, it goes back to serving those who are underserved, and that can always get the support that they need. And, you know, those are just a couple of examples of places that we go that not a lot of people do.

Erik Gudmundson: Excellent suggestions. Definitely a few from my list there. And, I know I really appreciate your candid answer there because that’s not an easy question. I dare say it’s one of the toughest questions that we tend to ask on this podcast. So thank you for playing along with us. 

Gary Golden, CEO of Propell Credit Union. Where can listeners connect with you and learn more about how Propell can help them?

Gary Golden: So they can also jump on the website. There’s a link there to the CEO corner. It’s an email that I encourage all of my members to reach out to, and I will personally answer all emails that come through there. I do that every day. I get emails in that in that inbox, and I personally answer them all. And they can be general questions. They can be from existing members. You don’t have to be a member to ask a question, though.The email’s out there. And if you have a a more general question, hey. How do I ask for money? I, you know, that’s a big question that small businesses often ask, and it’s one of the biggest hurdles that they have. You know, how do they how do they apply for a loan? Is it just fill out a piece of paper and hope for the best. Or is there actually some strategy behind it?

So, we actually, help organizations with that process, and there’s a lot of things that we can do that are outside of the banking arena that we would also get people involved with. You know, you need a payroll services provider, we can help you with that. You need you’re growing and you need group health insurance, I got a guy for that. You need retirement planning, setting up, you know, a pension plan. Yeah.I got a guy for that. 

So, you know, we we touch a lot of different areas, so, and, again, we encourage people to reach out and and and talk to us, and, understand that we’re we’re all in sort of the same boat together, and we’re here for them. And, hopefully, that’s a reciprocal relationship that is beneficial to everybody.

Liam Dempsey: I sit in awe of your commitment to email, Gary. That is impressive.

Gary Golden: Well, that’s the easiest way. People can phone me too, but I do, I do still email. I don’t know. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur, but happy to do it. And, it’s something that seems pretty people are pretty engaged that way, because they can do it on their time. You know, I get emails that seem to be timed at, like, 1 in the morning. I guess when people think of something, that’s the they hit an impulse, and they and they’ll send a question in. I may not answer you at 1 in the morning, but, I will definitely, I will definitely reply promptly.

Liam Dempsey: Well, thanks so much for being here today. Really appreciate your time and and company.

Gary Golden: Sure. It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me on, guys.

Erik Gudmundson: Thank you. And thank you also to my co-host, Liam Dempsey. I’m Erik Gudmundson. 

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