Want to learn how credit unions thrive through collaboration? Curious about leading a low-income designated institution? In this episode of Credit Union Conversations, host Mark Ritter sits down with Andy Jaeger, CEO of Credit Union of New Jersey, for an insightful 1-on-1 conversation. From his unexpected start in the credit union industry to driving financial wellness and youth engagement through initiatives like the Greenlight debit card, Jaeger shares his journey and vision. Discover strategies for succession planning, fostering emerging leaders, and supporting small credit unions to ensure a vibrant future for the industry.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• (00:00) Intro: meet Andy Jeager
• (02:55) Andy Jaeger shares his origin story into the credit union space
• (09:05) A low-income designated credit union with $475 million in assets, focusing on members 
• (15:02) Fostering credit union philosophy by indoctrinating new employees to maintain industry spirit
• (19:31) Succession planning strategies, training emerging leaders and identifying talent gaps
• (24:21) Small credit unions should collaborate and partner to overcome economic challenges 
• (29:16) Credit Union of New Jersey’s priorities: financial wellness, youth engagement via Greenlight debit card

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Collaboration is vital for the credit union industry's future. Andy Jaeger emphasizes partnerships, like those with business lending CUSOs, to help small credit unions deliver services cost-effectively while maintaining their identity.
• Succession planning is critical to sustain the credit union's philosophy. Jaeger advocates for identifying and training emerging leaders through regional programs and networking to preserve the industry's mission.
• Financial wellness and youth engagement are priorities for Credit Union of New Jersey. Initiatives like the Greenlight debit card aim to attract younger members and promote long-term member services and community impact.

RESOURCE LINKS

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

Credit Union of New Jersey - Website

Andy Jaeger - LinkedIn

BIOGRAPHY:

Andy is the longtime CEO of Credit Union of New Jersey. Andy is an accomplished credit union executive and is a former chair of the New Jersey Credit Union League.

KEYWORDS: Credit Union, Collaboration, Succession Planning, Member Services, Financial Wellness, Low Income, Community Impact, Youth Engagement, Greenlight Debit, Credit Union Philosophy, Board Training, Emerging Leaders, Small Credit Unions, Member Business Financial Services, Business Lending CUSO, Greenlight debit card

[00:00:30] So joining me today is Andy Yeager of Credit Union of New Jersey. Andy, how you doing?

[00:00:40] Mark Ritter: How are you? I am doing awesome on this nice summer day, so, and I'm glad it's not raining yet, so we've had way too much rain lately. Yeah, I, I agree. Normally, uh, this time of the year, my grass is completely brown and I can't mow it, uh, 'cause it's dead.

[00:01:22] I think it's important that we continue to collaborate. Learn, talk with each other and put out the voices of, uh, the credit union industry, uh, where it's been, where we're at, and where we're going. So, Andy, you ready to, uh, for, for me to pick your brain a little bit?

[00:01:44] So I'm, I'm,

[00:02:16] And they said, Hey, college boy, we need somebody to run the credit union. Wow. And he said, okay. And he never left. And he was the CEO of the credit union. Wow. Wow. For years and years and years. That's

[00:02:30] Mark Ritter: So the, the industry has changed a little bit. Uh, I don't think that happens too, too much anymore, but I always like to, to ask people kind of your background, your origin story, uh, you know, uh, uh, and how did you get started in this?

[00:02:55] Andy Jaeger: Well, I, I can tell you I wasn't swinging a hammer and then [00:03:00] recruited into a credit union. Uh, that, that's a great story. But, um, you know, I, I think, I think there's a lot of stories of just being in the right place at the right time.

[00:03:43] So I, I got hired with a company. I began to, you know, do the testing. Started with my series six. Um, but you know, I, I soon realized that, you know, as a, as a new person in that industry. [00:04:00] Uh, with no book of business, it was hard to, it's hard to make money 'cause you, you really had to, they

[00:04:13] Andy Jaeger: That's right. You know, and they, they, they give you a, uh, non forgivable draw. So, you know, I, I was doing it. And then, um, a friend of mine. Uh, that I knew from my hometown. I, I ran into him. I, I don't remember now where I ran into him, but, uh, he, he had a, a, an accounting degree and, uh, he goes, uh, Andy, how's it going?

[00:05:01] I knew my dad had an account at a credit union at his job, but I didn't know much more than that. I didn't have an account. So I go over, I, you know, I apply, I get the interview, and I get hired as a. And Rich, I, I'm only outta college like seven or eight months at this point. Um, I think I got hired in November of the year I graduated, so it might even been less than that.

[00:05:56] And I'd go to chapter meeting dinners and go to annual meetings [00:06:00] of credit union. So what, what I'm driving at you, you, you were on the rubber chicken circuit quite a bit. I, I was, and as a young guy. You know, I didn't mind it one bit. You know, I was just a bachelor young guy. Um, you know, they let me work from home primarily and then leave in the morning and go, you know, I'd have to go visit credit unions.

[00:06:38] Mark Ritter: and, and it was probably it. It's quite a bit different time than that. There were so many credit union, so many more credit unions.

[00:06:54] Andy Jaeger: No, it you're, you're right. And, um, you know, not, not to necessarily date myself, but [00:07:00] we're, we're talking, you know, like the mid to late eighties is, is the timeframe. And there were probably 12,000 credit unions in the country, and I, I think there were 6,000 in New Jersey.

[00:07:38] And, um, tell her about all the training and services that the league had. But I was in the ladies' kitchen at the credit union. So that's, that's how, how far we've come. Uh, so, so my journey really Mark, um, you know, putting aside the brief. Period of time where I, [00:08:00] I thought I was gonna be a financial advisor, um, college league, and then one of the credit unions that was in the territory where I, I would visit, asked me if I wanted to join the credit union as the assistant manager.

[00:08:39] So really the, the, my entire career has been in credit unions. That's been my journey. Uh, college, uh, hometown friend told me about this job opening at some place I never heard of happened to be the league. And I haven't looked back since that. That's, that's my journey. [00:09:00]

[00:09:05] Andy Jaeger: Yeah. Um, you know, so the, you know, the credit union, as I said back then was the, um, New Jersey Department of Transportation Credit Union. It was State Chartered, started out in 1943 as the Highway Employees Credit Union, single sponsor, um, and. You know, and I, I got here in 89 and we had the one office, probably about 4,000 members and 25 million in assets.

[00:10:00] I, I, I think we cover the gamut in, in most services that a consumer would want, um, from retail. To Business to Wealth Advisory. Uh, you know, we're located here in Trenton, New Jersey. Well, the, the town's Ewing, but we're a suburb of Trenton, so we're, we're in the capital region of, of the state of New Jersey.

[00:10:47] Mark Ritter: In, in some ways, I wish we could get back to the days of. Bringing people in the industry and having them learn that jack of all trades that you had to [00:11:00] have when you first got there. Where, where you were well-rounded, ver you know, in today's world, uh, you know, my son's a finance major. He's gonna get hired as a business analyst or as an underwriter or something that we hire people for very narrow positions.

[00:11:35] Right. Right.

[00:12:04] On a Wednesday night at a board meeting, I'd be at annual meetings for boards and, and memberships on Saturday mornings. I would help credit the smaller credit unions that had manual accounting. I would help them with their quarter end closing entries on how to, how to book their dividends and, and, and so forth.

[00:13:11] You know, and we had a very antiquated, like a, it was called a burrows posting machine, so I, I don't wanna bore people, but, um, you know, just some of the, you know, the detail that, that I was able to get exposed to really, really helped my journey as we grew the credit union, and I understood every facet of the operations and, and the credit union and, uh, what.

[00:13:49] Mark Ritter: just the relationships you had. Well, one of the reasons I got into QSOs is because, you know, really one of my mentors, [00:14:00] Bob Marquette from members First who, who's since, uh, passed away tragically a few years ago, but.

[00:14:31] I, I, I see sometimes new people in the industry, they, they, they come in, I came from a bank, or they, they see it as the credit union down the street as competition. They don't see it as, oh, we can both work together and collaborate. Um, what, where do you, what do you think we should do to kind of maybe rekindle some of that collaboration and, and keep it going so it doesn't slow down, uh, as new [00:15:00] people enter our industry?

[00:15:27] So you are seeing more people from outside the industry coming in. Um, I, I think, you know, and I, I've dealt with it here, um, it, I think it's very important. To establish the, the purpose of the credit union and kind of indoctrinate people in, in a positive way as to the difference between a credit union and a for-profit institution.

[00:16:26] So, you know, trying to keep that legacy going, you know, you gotta let go of the past to move forward, but there's no, no harm in, in, in, um, honoring, uh, where we came from. Um. And then I think the, uh, you know, the, um, the spirit of collaboration too also helps to foster that. I've spoken to a lot of ex bankers that have come into the credit union industry, and when they learn of the collaboration [00:17:00] and the sharing that goes on in the credit union industry, they're blown away.

[00:17:21] Mark Ritter: And as you said, technology can change, service offerings can change, but I don't see the spirit and philosophy.

[00:17:46] Andy Jaeger: Yeah. I, mark, one of the things I do is, um, you know, and we're, we're not a huge company, about a hundred employees, but, you know, we have our, our share of new employees.

[00:18:30] How, you know, we exist solely for the member. You know, the, you know the story and I'm sure people listening know the story, but my point is, it you, you have to, you have to share the story. And when that stops getting shared internally, that's when we, we could lose, lose something. Um, so it's, it's important

[00:18:56] How do you feel Credit Union should really handle [00:19:00] the succession planning? So not only that next group and that next wave feeds into the philosophy and the credit union can continue to grow. Uh, we hear it a lot from the small and medium sized credit unions. Uh, when they get sticker shock, when A CEO may retire or they don't have people, you know, they can't keep talent.

[00:19:31] Andy Jaeger: Yeah. Uh, that's, that's a big challenge. Um, particularly for smaller organizations. Again, we're, you know, we're, we're decent sized, but you know, we, we, we don't have a ton of depth, like some credit unions, larger ones that might have 2, 3, 400 people.

[00:20:24] Do we have anybody, if you know, this person left the far head of lending left, do we have anybody underneath? So what we're doing, and the way we're handling it is, um, we're, we're doing that, we're, we're going through every position. And it takes time and we're, we're looking at where we, where we have potential talent and where we have gaps and risks.

[00:21:28] Board members, you know, that you have to include the board people in that, in that succession planning as well. Um,

[00:21:42] Andy Jaeger: that it, it's, it's a big challenge. It's a real big challenge. Um, so you know what we do, some, some of the tactical things we do is we, we absolutely leverage.

[00:22:23] Um, so they're. Networking and meeting other credit union people. And I, you know, as someone who started in this industry right outta college, the, the energy that you get when you're younger and emerging, when you're talking to other people about the credit union philosophy, the credit union movement, it kind of just feeds on it.

[00:23:18] From peers too. So it's, it, that's one of the things we're doing. Um, as well as formally identifying, you know, on our org chart, who do we have, when are they gonna retire? Um, do we have anyone to backfill? Do we, are we training anyone? So it's really a, a focus. It, it just becomes, it has to become a focus.

[00:24:13] Yeah. And the small credit unions and, and help them grow. So the, the, the consolidation slows down.

[00:24:42] But you know, the, the reality is that the economics are becoming very difficult, uh, for some credit unions, uh, particularly the small ones. The, the reality is, you know, the investments needed to stay relevant to [00:25:00] attract younger members who wanna borrow. 'cause we're credit unions. We make our money from, primarily from loans, interest on loans.

[00:25:37] Mark Ritter: So Yes,

[00:26:02] You need to. So to get to your question, the credit unions that are challenged economically, I would, if I could fix something, um, I would get to those credit unions and save. We can help, we can collaborate. There's things we can do together. Maybe you don't have a, a mortgage program or an auto loan program, or you don't have something.

[00:26:50] You know, stay independent and hope, hope you can grow and thrive and serve your members. So you gotta and grow your membership. You can merge if you come [00:27:00] to the conclusion that you can't or there's that other option, and that's the collaboration, you know, partner with other credit unions and pull your resources.

[00:27:50] Right.

[00:28:20] So that way there's, when there's, they're, they're, they're building internally and also out in the community just, and, and baby steps, you know, but, but sometimes we, we, you know, 20 years ago. People would come to you. You had this captured audience 25, 30 years ago. You had this captured audience of potential members and sometimes people wanna live off of those days, but you really have to get out there in the community as well.

[00:28:51] Andy Jaeger: that all that's a challenge.

[00:29:16] Andy Jaeger: Yeah, thank, thanks for asking that. Um. You know, I, I think our, our priorities, you know, fundamentally are to serve our members and, you know, deliver on our, our brand promise and our mission. We, there's a lot of need in our marketplace. Um, we are a low income designated credit union, um, roughly 55%, um, of low income designation in our membership.

[00:30:14] Financial wellness team, our business development team, our community impact team, and, you know, trying to make a difference with our segs and in our communities in helping people, uh, with, with the basics, uh, a car. A home, a credit card, a mortgage, um, micro loans. We still do small loans for people. And so we, we, you know, we want to, we wanna serve our members at the same time.

[00:31:15] Uh, Greenlight is a, a youth debit card and app, uh, that allows parents to manage. At the, uh, child's finances and links, chores to earnings, and there's financial content. It's a, you know, it's not a, a big profit thing, but it's more of a, a long term play to, to start to, you know, creating awareness with youth.

[00:31:51] Andy Jaeger: that's a, that's a, that's a good idea. This, this one is specific for, for youth, but may maybe Yeah, that's a good idea. [00:32:00] Um, so, you know, that's where we're focused. Um, okay. You know, to, to just continue to grow.

[00:32:36] Um, so if our members are happy, we're doing our job. Okay.

[00:33:02] So thank you for joining me today.

[00:33:10] Mark Ritter: This is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations. Please, uh, hit that subscribe button, uh, as you're listening to this. So it comes up in your feed every week. We're on all the major audio platforms, wherever you happen to listen to shows.