This is being used for CUT homepage videos and the PC360Astonish videos

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This is being used for CUT homepage videos and the PC360Astonish videos

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This is being used for CUT homepage videos and the PC360Astonish videos

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This is being used for CUT homepage videos and the PC360Astonish videos

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If David Tuyo, interim president/CEO at Pen Air Federal CreditUnion, has his way, get ready for the $1.1 billion credit union tochange the world.

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“I'm looking forward to beating Bank of America, but we'repacing ourselves,” Tuyo said half jokingly of his Pensacola, Fla.-based credit union. “I am extremely hypercompetitive, so I want us to be No. 1 at everything. For me, thatenergy and competitiveness really drives back down to a desire tofind out what's my real potential, our team's potential and how toget to that destination.”

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Involved with credit unions for 10 years, Tuyo has worked forboth corporate and natural person credit unions. At each job, hehas been a leader in innovation, implementing change, staffdevelopment, member development and overall increasing the valuefor the member and employees. While he asks a lot of his staff,it's no less than his expectations for himself. For Tuyo, who haswanted to be a champion in the financial services industry sincethe 8th grade, his career path and life could serve as a case studyof how perseverance, determination and the power of positivethinking delivers results.

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“I believe we can all live a life dedicated to becoming thestudent of our profession,” said Tuyo. “I was at a sales conferencein 2001 speaking with Lou Holtz, who stated 'leadership comes frombelow and the title comes from above.' His message was don't wastetime on attaining a title, be a leader now and focus on what isimportant to leaders–people. Success is only a measure of what youdid yesterday. What I'm most proud of is what we've been working onas far as leadership development and strengthening the team and howto help everyone improve themselves.” 

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He added that the huge push for leadership development fromskills assessment and strategic alignment in the organization hasbeen an eye-opening experience.

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“We're focused on helping people get from good to great andgreat to extraordinary by investing in them,” said Tuyo. “It is notjust fluff talk, there is research and real results that supportit. I really think if all your focus is on people and you invest intheir training, well being and leadership ability, no one out therecan beat you. Let's face it, if you take the people out of theequation, all that is left is just brick and mortar. Banks don'thave the time to do it because they are so profit driven andfocused on products and stuff, credit unions can take it to themespecially now as consumers are pulling back andquestioning.” 

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A believer in assuming positive intent and the art ofpossibilities, Tuyo defines innovation as knowledge creation.

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“Too often innovation is about stuff. My litmus test todetermine if something is really different is: can it bought, soldor replicated. If so, then the advantage may only be short

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term,” said Tuyo. “To create stuff is just a point in time, butto facilitate a system of knowledge creation that is a sustainableongoing engine, is to be able to do great every day. So it's abouthaving an environment that allows for failure and encouragesconstant refining.”

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To that end his weekly and monthly meetings feature thequestion, how will you put into practice what was learned since thelast meeting? In addition, a monthly fringe meeting withsupervisors and senior team members is held to take a closer lookat, talk through and act on what's happening outside the creditunion or even the financial services industry. As part of PenAirUniversity, in addition to a basic leadership course for newmanagers, an advanced leadership institute has been created inconjunction with the University of West Florida. Twelve futureleaders are split into two groups and given the opportunity to notonly explore the full scope of projects across the organization,but also work on researching and developing initiatives they feelPenAir should pursue.

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“When they get that scope early on of how IT, accounting, sales,operations, compliance, how the whole comes together it can onlymake us as an organization stronger,” said Tuyo. “And the othergroup that works on the research project process looks at what'sgoing on in the fringe and submits their findings to a committeeconsisting of me and the senior team, and they choose the one theywant to go with. Again, it's about increasing interaction, criticalanalysis and thinking about what we as an organization want tocreate.”

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Looking at the credit union industry as a whole he said toooften credit unions point to other area credit unions as thecompetition.

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“It's a short-sighted view because just looking in my market,all the credit unions together have 17% of that market share. Thatmeans we have 83% we can go after,” said Tuyo. “If we have morecollaboration among ourselves we would do so much better as far ascompeting against banks. We have to get better at sharing ourcredit union story and make our focus not about products or stuffbut people. We need credit union evangelists in the marketplace. Wecan have the products members need and want, but at the end of dayit's the focus on our people and communicating with them in theright way at the right time. That's what changes the world.”

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He added that credit unions have a historic opportunity to getout and share their story and connect within their communities in anew way. At PenAir FCU, a new awareness campaign has literallyhelped the community view the team as heroes. Playing on a comicbook theme, the Pen Air Patrol, consisting of Money Maven,Debt-Free Diva, Captain Premier, Fee Crusher and The Funder, wasformed to help save locals from the “greedy hands of badbanks.”

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The superheroes can be spotted on billboards, comic books andeven as life-sized stand ups in branches. They even created a fullback story for the characters at www.penairpatrol.org.

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To Tuyo, the superhero characters basically embody what staffersat PenAir FCU do every day.

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“We have such an amazing team of great talent who areresourceful and ready to help guide members to the bright futuresthey deserve,” said Tuyo. “It's an aggressive campaign where we aresaying how we are different. What better way to tell our story inthis creative way? The villains are spot on and I think it's likelightning in a bottle.” 

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PenAir has also started a CUSO called CU Sparks with an eye onsparking innovation across the industry.

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“The goal is to partner with 10 to 15 credit unions across thecountry, to meet with these all stars, brainstorming spending timeon innovation with a focus on operations driven efficiency to awhole new level,” said Tuyo. “With all everyone has to do at theirown credit union there is little to no time to think and take on abusiness challenge individually or as a movement and really createsomething special. It's not about products but more the variouschallenges we're seeing with C-level executives. It's a provingground so from benchmarking strengths to people to innovation itwould allow us to do that on a daily basis. The credit unionmovement can be a solution for society and touch members andcommunities we serve in more ways than just money.” 

This is being used for CUT homepage videos and the PC360Astonish videos

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