Evansville Teachers Federal Credit Union Elects Board Members, Sets Records

EVANSVILLE, Indiana –– Evansville Teachers Federal Credit Union members re-elected four members to their volunteer board of directors, with the announcement coming at the credit union’s annual meeting on Tuesday, March 19, at Evansville’s DoubleTree by Hilton, where another record-setting year was celebrated. 

Re-elected to the board were Pam Blessing, Andy Guarino, Mike Russ, and Harold Smith.

Blessing, a retired professor at the University of Southern Indiana, is a 30-year board member. Guarino, a retired administrator with the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and member of the School Board, will start a second 3-year term. Russ, who retired as Chief Technology Officer of EVSC, is a 33-year board incumbent. Smith, who retired as Title 1 Coordinator for the EVSC, is a 27-year board incumbent.

Meantime, board president Ken Wempe, along with CEO and President Bill Schirmer, shared news about continued growth for the credit union, which was recognized as Best-in-State for Banks and Credit Unions by Forbes in 2018 and received the Courier & Press Readers’ Choice top award, Platinum, for the sixth consecutive year. ETFCU also was again recognized as No. 1 among all Indiana credit unions for “best-performing credit union” and “total return to member” by independent rating agencies.

Among the 2018 accomplishments, the credit union:

• Added nearly 15,000 new members to increase total membership to more than 207,000.
• Increased net worth by $15.2 million for total equity of $160 million.
• Grew loans by $166 million to a total of $1.33 billion.
• Grew total assets by $190 million to $1.65 billion.
• Increased the popular Vertical Checking program by $50 million to total deposits of $133 million.
• Increased investments via ETFCU Financial Group by $40 million to $308 million.
• Returned $3.8 million to members in 2018 checking benefits alone.
• ETFCU and its employees donated $45,000 to United Way of Southwestern Indiana.
• Members and employees donated nearly $90,000 to build a Habitat for Humanity house; employees already have pledged $104,000 along with work hours for a house in 2019.
• President and CEO Bill Schirmer was honored with the Indiana Credit Union League’s Professional Achievement Award and named to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council

“What I’m most proud of is the impact that our services, our donations, and our employees have on the community,” said Wempe, a recent inductee into the EVSC Foundation Hall of Fame. “Credit unions are all about people helping people, and this organization time and again does just that.’

ETFCU was formed by teachers from Evansville public schools and what now is the University of Evansville in 1936. It operates 14 ETFCU branches in Evansville, Fort Branch, Mount Vernon, Newburgh, Princeton and Vincennes in Indiana, and in Henderson and Owensboro, Kentucky. It also operates four full-service branches of Liberty Financial, a Division of ETFCU, in Bowling Green and Louisville, Kentucky, as well as Franklin, Tennessee. Another ETFCU office will open in Washington, Indiana, in 2019, and another Liberty Financial office will open in Franklin, Tennessee. Immediate expansion plans include multiple offices in the Louisville and Greater Nashville markets.