Issuu

September 2021

Contents

C.F.O. CORNER

This months Exec. corner is by Ben Altonen our CFO!

NEW FOR MEMBERS

Branch work in progress photos for East end & Ladysmith.

SCCU PROMOTIONS

Congratulations to all employees who have been promoted! You are valued!

LOCAL GIVING

Behind the scenes we are always trying to make a difference in our local communities.

WHAT’S COMING FOR YOU

Party, party, party! Thats this months focus for you!

WELCOME TO THE TEAM

R&F COFFEE TALK October 1st @ 8:10am Learn more about personal finance & investments with Wendy and Tony.

Meet your new teammates! We are happy to bring on some extra hands and some great people!

MEET MELLEN

Are you confused what certain jobs entail? Well wonder no more! This month Andrea from Mellen shares her position!

Q4 CREATIVE

Write a review and get put in the drawing to win 1 of 5 $25 Home Depot gift cards!

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ough act to follow for the 2nd edition of Insider but let’s give it a shot. I have worked with many of you for quite a while now, but if we have not crossed paths or if you are new to the company, I am Ben Altonen and serve as your CFO, located in the Administrative Building. My areas cover much of the back office duties so you likely aren’t going to see me in the branches all that often, but I am only a phone call or email away. Over the last 11 years with SCCU, I have seen a lot! This year has not been an exception to this by any means and I am hopeful everyone has seen the positive changes from the new leadership. Whether it be the small changes that you don’t see daily or some of the bigger changes that you cannot miss, I hope you are all seeing the effects. With change there are sometimes difficult decisions that are to be made during the budgeting process that we are working on. Currently, we are working through the middle stages of budgeting for the upcoming year and so far things are shaping up how we want to see. There has been a lot of progress with expansion of our brand through new branches, development of branch consistency, and reaching out to the membership to serve them in different channels. All these changes do come at a cost which sometimes can create cuts in programs or forward progress, but in this instance early changes to how we do business are helping avoid those outcomes. The outstanding job that you as staff are doing to enhance processes, loan volume, and bringing in new members is making budgeting much easier than expected! Keep up that great work and the forward momentum. As Tim has continued to let you all know, there is a lot of good going on in the background and a lot of cool ideas coming. I can only hope you are all enjoying it as much as we are.

GET TO KNOW BEN

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK? The Code: The Unwritten rules in the NHL by Ross Bernstein and Throwback by Jason Kendall. Find myself drawn to the behindthe-scenes sports books. WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO? Never up, never in. WHAT’S YOU GUILTY PLEASURE? Understanding and working with golf club specs and swing data for optimization. WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE SPORTS TEAM Kansas City Royals

LAST 2 TV SHOWS YOU BINGE-WATCHED? White Lotus and Letterkenny IF YOU WERE AN ALIEN FROM MARS, WHAT WOULD BE THE WEIRDEST THING ABOUT THE TWIN PORTS? The people that insist on wearing shorts the first 40-degree day in the spring. Grew up here and still can’t figure it out. WHAT TEMPERATURE DO YOU CONSIDER COLD? 65 in the Summer and below 0 in the Winter DOES YOUR PORSCHE HAVE A NAME? Typically it gets referred to as “little car” or “P-car”.

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WHY DID YOU COME TO SCCU? I came to SCCU in August 2010, 11 years ago, to pursue an opportunity in the credit union world after spending some time working for larger corporations such as American Express.

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We are closing the branches on October 11th for a day of celebration! We are gathering the troops at Earth Rider Brewery in Superior for the debut of our new core values, team building, activies, & lunch. Be on the look out for a calendar invite and more details to come.

Keep an eye on your home mailbox because you should be recieving our holiday party invite & RSVP towards the end of October! We are in full planning mode on our end from planning food, to decor, to activities & speeches. We don’t want to hype it up too much, but this party is going to be EPIC!

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Don’t worry, we aren’t forgetting about Halloween in all our event planning. On October 29th, you are invited to compete in a company wide costume contest, the department with the best costumes win!

Remember! • Must be work appropriate • No full face coverings/masks (other than the required face masks) • Must wear SCCU name tag

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IT’S A WORK IN PROGRESS...

Sara Ellis

Mortgage Processor Tower

Hollie Massier

Mortgage QC Analyst Tower

Marcus Roberts MSR Tower

Lisa Johnholtz MSR Tower

Breanna Wes

Community Engage Admin Building

Kay

MSR Shore

Dana Goenne Financial Specialist Bruce

Rae

Fraud Admin

ssberg

ement

ylin Schadwil

eline/East End

eanna Hill

d Specialist n Building

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MEET MELLEN! A small but mighty branch, Mellen’s team of 3 is led by Aundria Kretzschmar. We asked Andrea to tell us a little about herself and the work she does here at SCCU.

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HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WITH SCCU? I have been with SCCU for 5.5 years already. I honestly can’t believe it has been that long and time just seems to keep going faster with each passing year! I also started off my career working for SCCU. I worked in the bookkeeping department at Tower (it was in the basement at the time) for a couple of years as the Share Draft/ ACH Clerk. Then transferred to

Mellen when there was an opening, because I wanted to move back to my hometown, since most of my family is here. I worked here as a teller for a couple of years. This was all from 2003-2007. So happy that after almost 10 years, I found my way back to SCCU! DO YOU HAVE ANY RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS? Well, we’ve been meeting and exceeding our goals every month, so I am pretty proud myself and my team for that! WHO’S ON YOUR TEAM? Jill Krause and Marques Anderson. Jill is our MSR II and Marques is our part-time MSR. Jill has been with SCCU for just over 19 years now (I think she’d agree with me when I say, time flies when you’re having fun, right Jill?) Marques has been with us since April of this year and has been a great addition to our office. I am very grateful for each of them and I think we make a great little team! GIVE US A BROAD OVERVIEW OF YOUR JOB It’s honestly different every day. Working in a small branch, I wear many different hats. I go from my manager duties and

Aundria Kretzschmar Branch Manager

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR JOB TO 5 YEAR OLDS? I get to help people out with their money all day. If they behave and pay their bills on time, I even get to help them buy cars, boats, 4-wheelers, and other fun things! WHAT DOES A TYPICAL WORK DAY LOOK LIKE FOR YOU? I am up by 5:30 to take care of the dogs and get myself ready for work before the kids have to wake up. I am lucky enough to be able to drop them off at school every morning at 8 before heading into work! Every day is different here for me and I really enjoy that variety. Some days are spent processing loans/new accounts. Some are spent doing the MSR duties if either Jill or Marques is out. We usually don’t have members make appointments to come in and see me. They just stop in. So throughout the day, I set other work aside many times, so I can help our members in the moment. We try to create the best experience possible for them. HOW DOES THE POSITION BENEFIT MEMBERS? EMPLOYEES? WHAT’S ITS PURPOSE? Being that my position is mostly member facing, like I said, we try to provide the best possible member experience. We want SCCU to have an awesome reputation and I feel like that all begins with the experience the member has when they walk through the door. If they have a great experience, they’ll talk to their friends/families about us, so that helps generate more business. If they have a horrible experience, they’ll talk about that even more. So I always take pride in helping our members thoroughly and efficiently. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ASPECT OF YOUR JOB? I love working in the community that I grew up in. Knowing all of our members and being able to help them out is very rewarding.

WHAT’S A QUESTION YOU’D LIKE TO ASK OUR CEO? Hmmm.. Do you like living in WI better than FL? If you say yes, I find that hard to believe! IF YOU HAD A YACHT, WHAT WOULD YOU NAME IT? That’s a tough one…I am very indecisive when it comes to names, but if this counts, my in-laws have one and they named her Milk Money. We love going out on Lake Superior in the summertime with the whole family when the guys are able to get off of the farm. For those of you who don’t know, my father in-law, brother in-law, and husband own and operate a large dairy farm in the Mellen area, hence them choosing the name Milk Money. IF YOU HAD TO LISTEN TO ONE SONG ON REPEAT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT SONG WOULD IT BE? The first song that comes to mind is Copperhead Road by Steve Earle. I like such a wide variety of music though, so it probably depends on my mood. If you asked another day, I would probably say something different. HOW WOULD YOU SPEND $1 MILLION IN 24HR? I would give my parents a big chunk of it first, because they’ve done so much for me my whole life. Then I would pay off all of mine and my husbands debts and put large portion away for each of my kids for their future. Then once that was done, I would have to go on a shopping spree! WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU FOUND A PENGUIN IN THE FREEZER? Ha-ha, all I can think of is Billy Madison when I see this question! I guess I would probably quickly close the freezer and ask my husband to go look in there and tell me if I am losing it or not!

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making sure the branch is running smoothly, to Financial Specialist, to MSR, to even the cleaning/window washing lady.

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With the help of our new Community Engagement Coordinator, we are kicking community engagement into full gear! We’ve participated in some pretty exciting events during the past month. We participated in a School Supply drive, where underprivileged families could get free school supplies for their kids. Our task was handing out markers to all attendees and we even kick-started youth savings accounts by funding them with $25, if they filled out a membership application on the spot. We rounded out our sponsorship of Bayside Sounds with a table at the last concert which was on the UWS campus and it was great to interact with college students and community members alike! The third event we participated in was East End Family Fun Days. EEFFD was two blocks from our East End/Shoreline branch and included a car show, street vendors, pet parade, frozen t-shirt contest and a kid’s fun zone. We brought a kiddie pool filled with corn and coins and let kids dig for coins! We gave out piggy banks to new youth savings accounts. We even made it on the news! We are loving the opportunity to show our face in the communities we serve more often. Stay tuned for October events!

• Lifehouse Community backpack drive • Flambeau Valley Arts Association • Lake Superior Zoo • Hermantown Chamber of Commerce • Bruce High School • Zenith City Mens Club • Denfeld Hoops

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RECENT DONATIONS:

Q4 is all about personal loans, with a fun “fill in the blanks” campaign to showcase all the different ways members can use a personal loan from debt consolidation, to vacations, to holiday gifts.

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Buckle up, because SCCU is taking you on a wild ride. For the months of October and November only, we are offering a 1% discount when you refinance your auto loan with SCCU. Wut. Yep, you heard that right, cut your rate by at least 1% (you could qualify for an even greater discount!). Tell your friends, tell your members, help us spread the word about this great limited time offer.*

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*Eligibility is based on credit history and collateral. All loans subject to approval. Auto loan rates reduced to a rate as low as 2.19%. Offer valid on auto loans currently financed with a lender other than Superior Choice Credit Union. Minimum loan amount is $10,000. Membership eligibility required. Federally insured by NCUA. Promotion ends 11-30-2021.

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