60 Years of Serving Members At Geauga Credit Union

June 30, 2016 by Submitted

In 1956, a group of educators in Geauga County decided to create a credit union for school employees, laying the foundation for the Geauga School Employees Credit Union.

Little did they realize, 60 years later, over 15,000 different people would become members and utilize the services Geauga Credit Union offers.

Initially, membership was only open to Geauga County school employees and their families.

Credit unions have charters, or fields of membership which specify groups that may be included in membership.

Geauga Credit Union expanded their field of membership many times, first by adding “Select Employee Groups” or “SEGs” like Kinetico, Kraftmaid, Geauga County employees and many others.

In 1990, Johnson Rubber’s own Maple Leaf Federal Credit Union was dissolved and became part of Geauga Credit Union. Eventually, in 1992, Geauga Credit Union’s field of membership expanded to include anyone who lives or works in Geauga County.

Over the years, Geauga Credit Union was housed in many locations — beginning in the home of Frank Samuel, Sr., in Burton, then moving into Middlefield School, with Kelly Dreger as treasurer, then to Dean Court in Burton with Stan Rusnak.

In 1960, things were not going well for the credit union and a meeting was held to dissolve it at Burton Troy High School. There was not a quorum present so another meeting was held, at which Wilson Couch insisted they not dissolve.

As the librarian at Kenston High School, Couch was told he could run the credit union out of his library. In 1962, Couch found someone else to run the credit union because he was moving out of the area.

That summer, both Tom Briggs and Elmer Pierce traveled for National Science Foundation Scholarships they had received. When they returned, all of the property and paperwork belonging to the credit union was sitting on Elmer’s porch. There was $8,000 in assets at that time.

Couch made a trip to Burton and he and Briggs spent the whole weekend opening the summer’s mail and going over everything to get it all straightened out. Briggs took it over until 1968 in his home.

The credit union has been in Burton for several decades; beginning in 1968 on Main Street in the upstairs of the northeast block, moving in 1978 to the Spring Street Professional Building and then taking over the “Hansel’s Golden Dawn” in 1989 above Brockway Bond Insurance.

Geauga Credit Union built and moved into their spacious brick building, known as the Tom Briggs Building, across from Berkshire High?School in 2008 and to this day, Briggs continues to be the treasurer. Through all of these locations and moves, they continued to grow in membership and deposit base, currently hovering around $35 million. Their largest growth spurt came just after the move to their current location as they had become more visible and the “recession” had many people turning to credit unions.

The credit union is staffed by nine full-time employees and one part-time employee. Everyone is cross-trained to other duties and most employees wear several hats. Even the CEO, Lisa Briggs, can be seen behind the teller line on occasion.

Unlike other for-profit financial institutions, Geauga Credit Union is nonprofit and its board of directors and audit committee are non-compensated volunteers.

Loans to members are the mainstay of the credit union and all decisions are made on site, either by a loan officer or by a loan committee. Typical to credit unions, Geauga Credit Union can often help someone obtain a loan that was turned down at another financial institution.

Credit unions have the philosophy of “People Helping People” and Geauga Credit Union follows that philosophy every day. Not only are they involved in selling candy bars and collecting food for the local food pantries, they build an annual “TP Tree” made of donations of paper goods and toiletries for the food pantries.

Their staff are involved in many charitable and community organizations and volunteer as a group for the annual “Mad City Money” scholarship competition for Northeast Ohio high school seniors.

Geauga Credit Union is proud to celebrate its 60th year serving its members.