Danielle Gallagher is the CEO of Eagle One FCU in Claymont, DE. She has been involved with credit unions since college and worked her way up to be named CEO in 2020. Danielle and Mark take a deep dive into her journey, what's new at the credit union, and look at a crystal ball for the future of small credit unions.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• (00:00) Introduction
• (02:02) Danielle Gallagher’s professional background, leading her to Eagle One FCU
• (05:40) A snapshot of services Eagle One Credit Union provides
• (10:47) Danielle Gallagher’s experience of taking on the role of a long-tenured CEO
• (14:25) Discussion of being a CDFI (Certified Development Financial Institution)
• (20:05) Working with QSOs and what’s working well at Eagle One
• (23:29) Danielle Gallagher advises credit unions regarding succession planning

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• Danielle Gallagher's career at Eagle One Federal Credit Union began during college breaks, influenced by her mother's role there. She progressed from a member service representative to gaining experience in marketing and finance and eventually becoming CEO. Her grandfather also worked for the credit union under its former name, highlighting a family connection to the institution.
• Eagle One is a small but "mighty" credit union with about $85 million in assets and four branches. It serves around 9,000 members and particularly values its relationships with USPS and Philadelphia Gas Works employees. Despite its size, Eagle One offers a wide range of services and prioritizes member service. The staff wears multiple hats due to its smaller team size.
• Danielle emphasized the importance of succession planning, noting that Eagle One's smooth transition was due to months of preparation. She contrasts this with the trend of credit unions merging due to a lack of future leadership. Eagle One is a certified development financial institution that helps serve underbanked communities.

RESOURCE LINKS:

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

Danielle Gallagher - LinkedIn

CUC-Ep. 80 - Checking In With Danielle Gallagher of Eagle One

[00:00:27] Mark Ritter- Host: Hello, this is Mark Ritter here, host of Credit Union. In conversations and my day job is I am also the CEO of MBFS of business lending. QSO helping out over a hundred credit unions nationwide. And we have staff nationwide as well. And we'd love to see if we can help out your credit union. So it's conference season for me.

[00:01:17] So joining me today is Danielle Gallagher of Eagle one Federal Credit Union. Danielle, how you doing?

[00:01:28] Mark Ritter- Host: I was up at 4:00 AM today and flew halfway across the country on a few hours sleep. So if you see me fall over, that's why. So, but I'm powering through today.

[00:02:03] Danielle Gallagher: Sure. Yeah.

[00:02:26] My mom actually worked here, so you know, she was a full-time branch manager at the time, so I got hired by the previous CEO John King. And so, so it was, you know, I was a, he's,

[00:02:44] Danielle Gallagher: Pretty much, yeah. So I guess I kind of have credit union in my blood from, you know, I was 10 years old and you know, my.

[00:03:22] Fast forward a little bit. My degree isn't marketing, so I started to get into the marketing side of things here, which at our size, we didn't have a marketing department. We didn't have a marketing person at all, so I started working with some marketing areas and then I decided to go back and get my master's degree.

[00:04:03] And I could see myself here, you know, this as a career other than just the job that I got out of college. So I guess. All along. I've kind of had, as I said, credit union in my blood. A fun fact, actually, my grandpa, who is gonna be 92 years old, he actually worked for Eagle One back when we were Philadelphia District Railway Postal Clerks, federal Credit Union.

[00:04:28] Danielle Gallagher: Um,

[00:04:31] Danielle Gallagher: Yes. Name change was the early two thousands, so it's not as much of a mouthful, but as I said, I think. In my generation, people don't always know what a credit union is, and I've known what a credit union was since I was probably like 10 years old, so,

[00:04:52] So for his summer job where I said, you have to go get some money. So maybe, hopefully. Exactly. He has that same [00:05:00] career journey. So

[00:05:02] Mark Ritter- Host: So I've been to a lot of credit union conventions and it's safe to say if there's an all credit union volleyball team, I'm sure you're on the first team, you're in the upper tier of, yes, I'll be there.

[00:05:40] Danielle Gallagher: Yeah, so we are about 85 million in assets, so we're small, but I always say we're small and mighty. We have four branches. The main branch is the branch I work out at in Claymont, Delaware. Then our other three branches are located in the Philadelphia area. As I said earlier, we started as the Philadelphia [00:06:00] District Railway Postal Clerks, federal Credit Union.

[00:06:31] You know, each day is a whole different day. So the staff are great. They work very well with our members. We have about 9,000 members, and that's been pretty steady the last couple of years, even though you know some. It's tough right now to get new membership, but we've had a good, you know, 9,000 is pretty much our sweet spot.

[00:07:13] And so I think even for our size, we, we pretty much do it all. So yeah, that's a snapshot of Eagle one.

[00:07:39] It wasn't just, you were the marketing, you were the person who wrote ads, or you were the social media person, or you know, it was split up in such a level, you know, and at the branches. Mm-hmm. Everybody kind of has their own role. Whereas at Eagle One, you are pretty well exposed to a lot of [00:08:00] different things in your career by necessity.

[00:08:26] You know, the good and bad of that piece, you know, 'cause it's not something where you can go ahead and, you know, put ads on the six o'clock news all over the place just from a cost side.

[00:08:47] One of the bigger challenges, as I said, there's 17 of us, so on any given day there could be 13 of us, depending on what's going on. And you know, we're helping 9,000 members and we have all these other things to do during the day. [00:09:00] So we don't have a marketing department of 10 who's out there. Finding ways for us to grow.

[00:09:26] The different employer groups that we serve besides USPS, we also serve the Philadelphia Gasworks employees and their families. So that's a lot. You know, a lot of people in the city of Philadelphia. So we greatly value that relationship, and I think we just always. Stick to our niche and our members. We have a lot of very long, long time members, 20 plus years, and I think that's a good advantage for us.

[00:10:11] Mark Ritter- Host: Let's move a little bit to talking about taking over as the CEO. You were there as young college summer, help transitioned to full time. Then took over as the CEO. That had to be, you know. Tell me about taking over, first of all, from a long time, CEO. What was that transition process like? For you personally and the organization kind of, and what was generally the process like for that?

[00:11:07] It was a whole other world from, you know, waiting on the members out front. So I think I was, I had a lot of good experience. I saw a lot, you know, just from working closely with John over the years and. After I went through the interview process with the board of directors and they had made their decision, it was pretty much full fledge.

[00:11:45] Today is different from what yesterday was, honestly, especially at our size. So he taught me a lot. He introduced me to a lot of people in the industry. So I was able to kind of have my own connections that I very much needed since I took [00:12:00] over right before Covid, which I don't think anybody could have prepared me for that, but, and I think even.

[00:12:35] So I think that's something I've always tried to keep in the back of my head when, you know, there is a tough decision to be made.

[00:12:54] Sure. You know, that gets relatively awkward for everybody and also the [00:13:00] confidence you have in the position. Because you were going from coworkers and you know, there's probably people who were in a senior position to you back in the old days, and now you're the leader of the organization. But if you have confidence in what you're doing and build those relationships and trust.

[00:13:21] Danielle Gallagher: Yeah, I think even too, I mean the timing, like I said, it was right before Covid. I took over January 2nd, 2020 in March. The world changed, and I think even the way this, my staff and myself just came together during that time, I think even made us stronger and made that transition.

[00:13:54] So I think the timing sometimes is, was not a bad thing in this situation.

[00:14:21] So talk a little bit about how that impacts day to day.

[00:14:51] So I think, you know, we've always very much, you know, wanted to help those members and offer whatever products we can to them with the [00:15:00] help of, you know, these extra funding that we are able to get through the CDFI program.

[00:15:10] So I know you know many, many credit unions. You know, John was at the credit union for 30 some years and was a legacy. Long time. Many credit unions have said, ah. Let's not do a transition. We'll sell off the credit union. We'll merge it out. We'll become a bigger place, you know, and move on. Where Eagle One took the strategy of we're in this for the long haul, we're hiring.

[00:16:13] And say, wouldn't you like to merge with us? And you can kind of cash in a little bit, like what's it like day to day or when you go to the conferences or get the calls from people fishing for mergers.

[00:16:36] I will say we are a healthy credit union. I know we're an attractive credit union to other people around here, but I mean, we're. As you said, we, we took, you know, the road to, we wanna keep this going and, you know, we're small. And as regulations change, things do get tougher for our size. Credit unions, as I mentioned earlier, resources can be a challenge for us, but [00:17:00] honestly, from my perspective, that experience hasn't been.

[00:17:31] We'll see how it goes because like you said, each year we lose more and more credit unions and I just

[00:17:51] Danielle Gallagher: That's absolutely it. And even, I mean, you know, the mark from seeing people in the industry, you know, credit union CEOs are aging and like you said, it gets to a [00:18:00] point where they're done, they wanna retire and it's not, you can't really flip a switch and just. Brings somebody in. I mean, in my opinion, I think me being here and knowing Eagle one very well and the employees here, and the members here and just who we are and our philosophy really helped the transition.

[00:18:34] Mark Ritter- Host: no, but part of me doesn't like over intrusive government regulations.

[00:19:03] Danielle Gallagher: Yep. I agree with that.

[00:19:20] There's also have to be a second round of people that knows what's going on. And your bench has to be deep when you're in this industry and you're at this size. So, and I think that's where some other credit unions can struggle, but that's a priority for us in the last couple of years.

[00:19:44] And you are lucky enough to be an owner of a great business lending qso. So tell me a little bit about working with third parties, QSOs, you know, what, what does what, what do you [00:20:00] find works well and where, where, what do you look at and say, oh, this makes sense for us?

[00:20:16] So. We're greatly involved in those two QSOs. And then I always like to, when we're picking a vendor for something, I always like to find out a fair qso. I think QSOs obviously understand the industry and understand credit unions and credit union membership and it's just, it's a nicer feel typically when it comes to choosing a vendor for a product.

[00:21:08] Mark Ritter- Host: Yeah, I, I think it, it's, it's not practical to say, oh, we're going to come up with X new product and say, well, we're gonna hire it, we're gonna build it, we're gonna hire program, you know, get programmers. You, you have to leverage what's out there in our industry. And there's a lot of good choices. And people I sometimes struggle with credit unions that signed up for a service or say, oh, we wanna do business loans.

[00:21:47] Danielle Gallagher: Yeah, and we've had a lot of help. I mean, your staff have been great and any QSO that we've worked with the staff have really helped us and have made us more comfortable in-house too, and you know, making different decisions, making [00:22:00] different loan decisions, and getting involved in some other areas.

[00:22:09] Mark Ritter- Host: So the last two, three years have been quite the rollercoaster experience for credit unions. What's working well today? What's doing well in at Eagle One?

[00:22:26] If you read different reports and stats, it's hard for credit unions to gain new members, and that's been a focus for some time. Like I said, we have 9,000 members and we wanna get to 10,000 and 11,000, but that's not. Realistic right now. So I kind of said, let's take a step back and focus on the 9,000 members that we have and focus on their needs and how to serve them well.

[00:23:13] Mark Ritter- Host: So if you were sitting in front of a credit union conference, people that look in your asset range mm-hmm. A little bit bigger, a little bit smaller. What would you be telling them the next few years are gonna be like and what they need to do to succeed?

[00:23:35] That is key. I've seen, you know, where that hasn't happened and it, it's just a shame. But I think also from an industry standpoint. Things could get interesting. You know, there's a different administration and regs might lessen a little bit, and the economy is, you know, there's different things going on with the economy right now.

[00:24:17] So I think that, and like I said, really developing your bench and having, you know, a group of employees behind you that know how to carry on.

[00:24:42] Danielle Gallagher: Exactly.

[00:25:02] Danielle Gallagher: Exactly.

[00:25:08] Danielle Gallagher: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

[00:25:30] So thank you for joining me.

[00:25:33] Mark Ritter- Host: So this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union Conversations. Thank you so much for joining me today. Please subscribe on your favorite audio platform. It really helps us out and it makes it so much easier to listen to. So it's conference season. I'll be out in the community.

[00:26:17] Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Credit Union Conversations podcast. Have a question. Visit mark or bidder.com for more information.