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Heartland Credit Union President, Pamela
O'Connell Named Credit Union Times "2009 CEO of the Year"
Heartland Credit
Union (Heartland) President Pamela O’Connell was named "2009 Credit
Union Times Trailblazer CEO of the Year” at the Credit Union National
Administration’s Governmental Affairs Conference in Washington, DC
February 22-26th.
As the leading
independent publication in the industry, Credit Union Times is
looking to showcase the best the credit union movement has to offer. The
awards are unbiased and open to all credit union professionals and
volunteers, making it the premier awards program in the industry.
In 2000 Pamela
O’Connell spent her first months as the new chief of Heartland Credit
Union putting out a major fire–helping the credit union to recover from
the previous CEO’s fraud. Not only did she return the credit union to
financial stability and growth, but she understood that the staff had
felt betrayed and was ready and willing to listen.
In the years since
her first days at Heartland, Pamela has lead the credit union to
decrease the number of collection items, improve loan application
response time, expand the credit union’s field of membership into the
community, open a new main branch office, convert Heartland’s core
processing system, and become a true partner in the community through a
variety of alliances with schools, businesses and charities.
Pamela learned
that she had been selected for this award just days after her January
birthday. It was a complete surprise because her staff had nominated her
without her knowing. “I was totally blown away that they would do that
for me,” she said. “Just the thought of them thinking enough of me to
nominate me, it was unexpected. Being CEO at Heartland is a lot easier
because of my staff. I listen to them, they listen to me. It’s a two-way
street. We’re all working together to be ‘better, bigger, stronger.’
This award is a true honor and team effort.”
Click here to view the Credit
Union Times article (Adobe PDF - 1,930KB).
Click here to view story on Finance and Commerce
Pictured above: Mickey Goldwasser, Vice President Product Marketing &
Communication for Open Solutions, Inc.; Pamela O'Connell, Heartland
Credit Union CEO; Sarah Snell Cooke, Editor-In-Chief Credit Union
Times.
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