Three board members were unanimously elected to retain their seats on the Regional federal credit union board of directors during their 52nd annual meeting held on Wednesday at Andorra Banquet Hall in Schererville.
Bob Urick, Marv Allison and Bobby Escalante retained their board seats on the seven-member board that votes to either re-elect or add three new members every year.
“This meeting is our way of truly exercising the democratic process of credit unions involving their entire membership,” said Kevin Kosek, vice president of marketing and business development for Regional federal credit union.
Over 200 or so of the local members of the credit union attended the dinner at Andorra Banquets.
“This also is a great way for us to see members that we may not have seen in awhile and to see how they have grown financially,” Kosek added.
Following the dinner, the business portion of the meeting took place, where it was revealed that the total income from 2013 ($5,275,876.21) outweighed the expenses from last year ($5,179,910.39). Dividends to members made up $384,770.54 of the company’s expenses.
Kosek said REGIONAL began 52 years ago at a small location and was started through “teachers and city employees.”
More than a half-century later, they have three physical locations in Northwest Indiana (Valparaiso, Portage and Hammond) and 5,000 across the country. There are also more than 25,000 ATMs nationwide.
“And they have assets comparable to most banks,” added Michael Kobe, a member of the credit union’s supervisory committee who has been a member of REGIONAL for 49 years, beginning his membership when he was a science teacher at Hammond Gavit High School.
“It really helped me dramatically, since teachers had such low salaries back then,” he said.
“It is nice to see it expand like this,” Kosek added, noting the membership currently stands at somewhere around 22,000 - all of whom are invited to take part in the process of electing board members.
Kobe recommends joining REGIONAL because of its “friendly atmosphere.”
“There are no huge salaries to bank leaders and president of the board,” he said. “The interest rates are good and you can’t beat the prices. Plus, you get to see lots of other members of the community that take part as well.”
Raffle winners were read off after the meeting, with rewards to $50, $100 and $250 given out to certain members.