Branch Building for the Future: Featuring Civic FCU’s Sherry Bear

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Intro: This is Believe in Banking, a podcast series for decision makers, influencers, and leaders, featuring experts taking on the financial industry’s most pressing issues with insight and empathy. The podcast features information and conversations designed to enlighten and empower.

Gina Bleedorn (00:17): Welcome to our Believe in Banking podcast. I’m Gina Bleedorn, President and CEO of Adrenaline.

Juliet D’Ambrosio (00:24): And I’m Juliet D’Ambrosio, Chief Experience Officer at Adrenaline.

Gina, joining us today, we have a very special guest and I really love all of our opportunities that we have to talk with beloved colleagues and esteemed colleagues and clients. It’s always especially a joy to talk with a fellow woman in banking, and we’re so pleased to welcome Sherry Bear. She’s the Chief Administrative Officer at Civic Federal Credit Union.

I know that Sherry and Gina, you both have a long history going back of our relationship. I am coming in a little bit newer to this, so I’m just so curious. I’m going to be asking a lot of questions of you both to talk about the incredible transformative experience that Sherry led for her credit union in the development of 11 branches in under 12 months in 2024 and live to tell about it. Sherry, I would love for our listeners to just get a little bit of info about you straight from your perspective. Tell us a little bit about how you got to Civic Federal Credit Union. I know that you have spent a career in financial services. What led you there? What has your journey been?

Sherry Bear (01:54): Well, it is great to be here. I’m very excited to do this with you all today. We did have such a great experience last year, and I can’t wait to talk about it so that others get to hear about that. What led me to Civic was I had been with credit unions starting in 1985, starting with State Employees Credit Union in North Carolina, spent years there, went to Coastal Credit Union here in Raleigh, and then decided I was going to experience something besides credit unions. So I went with a consulting company, and realized very quickly that’s a lifestyle you should probably get used to in your twenties and not your forties.

And I ended up at a venture capital bank in Durham, and they were a client of ours and the CFO there at the time wanted a Controller, and he created a position and asked me to take that. So, I spent about three years in the venture capital world, which was super cool – a lot to learn. It’s just a very different world, but credit unions are where I’m comfortable. I was able to come back to Local Government, Federal Credit Union, which we started Civic eight years, and I’ve been on that ever since the beginning as part of creating the new credit union, getting the charter for it. It’s just been a joy to be a part of what we’ve done at Civic. So, currently I am the chief administrative officer, and I can tell you a little bit about that for anybody that would want to hear it.

My role is shaping strategy, obviously the branches that we did last year, but really creating a values-driven culture with our teams, our communities. I work a lot with our members. I do a lot of member events working with them [and am] very involved in creating products services with this digital transformation that we’ve done for our members. We did something so disruptive for our members with merging our two credit unions and leaving the operational delivery channels at SECU. So it’s been quite a ride, and it’s been just a joy to be a part of it. It’s just wonderful to be able to live our credit union mission.

Juliet D’Ambrosio (03:57): Great introduction. And I am struck by the fact that this is something Gina and I talk a lot about with clients. I’ve actually heard Gina say this on stage that change is hard. Change can be very scary. And it strikes me that everything that you just mentioned over the past eight years with both the development of Civic Federal Credit Union and the change for your members, the change for your employees, the cultural changes, the changes towards a more investment in branch banking model. All of that is huge transformation.

First of all, kudos in leading such a transformative effort. And Gina, talk a little bit about what your perspective has been as you have worked with Civic Federal Credit Union on this change journey and how they did something hard and did it right.

Gina Bleedorn (04:53): Well, first, Sherry used the word joy a lot. I’ll say Sherry is a joy and it’s been an honor to work with Sherry, with you, with your team, with Civic. Thank you, and yeah, the value infused culture that you are organizationally responsible for is so evident. And so it’s been an incredible partnership. But wild ride, indeed it has been over the past eight years, but probably the past 18 months or two years with its pinnacle of the ride.

And what we observed with Civic was just incredible resilience. And I might even say fearlessness, not saying that there weren’t, I’m sure, some of you had some inside fears, but you set out to do something almost unachievable or seemingly unachievable and you did it. And that was in the midst of separating from a credit union, merging with another credit union, rebranding both credit unions under that other credit union name, and then facing the daunting task of not having any branches due to that separation for your 400 members.

So, not a normal situation, but I think the learnings from what you did are quite interesting because you got to build a branch network from scratch – almost the way it should be or the way it could be. And so many clients have said things like or thought, “If I could only just blow up all my branches and start over…” Not that anyone would do that, but that’s what you got to do. And that came with inherent challenges, but also opportunity. Sherry, I would love for you to explain a little bit of the situation I mentioned that led to what you needed to do as no one explains it better than you do.

Sherry Bear (06:44): Well, thank you. I will try. And I had to take a rest there listening to all that, what we did. So our situation since 1983, the members of LGFCU have been served with all of the delivery channels at State Employees Credit Union here in North Carolina, which is a very large credit union. It’s been a wonderful partnership. It truly is. When you hear credit union support credit unions, there cannot be a better example of that. But our members were used to those delivery channels – 275 branches in very small communities [and] of course large cities, but across the entire state of North Carolina. So when we decided it was time, we had opened Civic, like I said, Civic is eight years old this year. In preparation for the time when we needed to manage and run and deliver all of the services for our members for both credit unions.

And that was quite an undertaking, because all of the data, the member data had to be taken from their systems put on our systems. When we announced that we were doing the merger, of course, we immediately heard from our members, I have to have a branch. What about my branch? And at the time, we didn’t have any, and we honestly did not have a plan to do any branches because Civic was online, mobile-only with a call center. And we stepped back and we said, this has always been a collaboration with our members that we build this together, the branches, and knowing that there is a facility that you could walk into makes a huge difference to our members. We knew we were not going to replicate a branch network of 275 buildings. That was not the business model. The business model is reliant upon a high level of self-service from the members.

So, we went to the data. We looked at it, we said, “Where are the members? How could we build a smaller branch network footprint, full-service and be within a certain mile radius of our members?” So within the data, we certainly looked at depositors because we have to have the deposits. “Where are the depositors? Where are the transactors?” And we ultimately decided that within a 35 mile radius of a location, we could have 80 to 85% of our members within that 35 mile radius. And that’s how we decided on those locations. And once that decision was made, sometimes you’re just lucky. And I feel very lucky to have had the team that managed this and ran in one year when we were told we have to open all of these branches by the end of December of 2024, and it was January of 2024, and we thought that’s not even possible.

You can’t find these locations and then get your contractors, your permits, your hiring, your processes, all of this had to be done, and we did it. But you just can’t do that unless you have folks that collaborate, that trust one another. And you hear that word “selfless” a lot, but honest to goodness, when you experience that with a team, it is so rewarding. I was just amazed at what we were able to accomplish. And when you look back at it, you think, how in the world did we do that? It was wonderful that we did meet that goal. We were bound and determined we were going to meet that goal. We actually had to pivot in one of our branches. I did learn that permitting can be a challenge, and we experienced that in one of our locations, and we had to pivot and actually do a leased location while we were still building out the land and the building that we purchased. So, it was quite an undertaking for sure.

Juliet D’Ambrosio (10:32): I’m almost speechless in hearing you tell the story directly, just getting it direct from your perspective about how quickly you had to both establish what the vision was, what the solution to that vision was, and then make it happen. With all of the challenges that are inherent in building branches, just like you said, and you actually did it.

What I’m also really interested in is this idea that you were led by data and what the data said was that your members wanted branches. So much of the industry is looking at the future and thinking, is our future digital only? What is the future of the branch? Is branch banking going to continue? You actually had the ability to look at it fresh and understand from your member’s perspective [that] branch banking is really important and that 85% of your membership being served with a nearby branch was something that was critical for them to continue being members.

I would love to know what you would tell someone sitting in your shoes about what you learned about the power of the branch, and why it’s so important to your members and thinking even more, why is it important for your employees? What has that done for your people? First values-based culture, how has that all been something that has catalyzed what you’re doing at Civic?

Sherry Bear (12:08): Oh, those are great questions. So, our members are heavy branch users, because they had those 275 branches, when you’re in a very small town and you have got a beautiful branch, no stoplights to get there and half the people there, you love going in there. And our board told us, “We know we are digital, but we are high touch-high tech, not high tech-high touch. So, that component was very big for us. And in looking at the design of the branches, and Gina, you mentioned this earlier about how hard it is if you currently have branches and you want to change how they function – the look, the feel, what happens in there. And we didn’t have branches, so we did have that clean slate, but trying not to create a teller line is difficult. And our members are so used to that. They walk in our branches now and sometimes they still don’t feel like they know where to go because they’re looking for that teller line.

Going through that type of behavior adjustment is hard. June and July were very tough for us. They were basically like a traditional branch teller line folks sitting there behind that TCR, but we knew that was not our long-term vision and that was not how these branches are designed. What we designed is the ability to do these transactions if is what the member wants to do, but we teach them how not to have to come into that facility to do a transaction. When they come in, they’re coming to see us about something that may be a little more complicated. It takes a little more time. These are community centers, as well.

Our partners, we have a lot of partners with industry groups within local government, and there’s space for them to use so that they can come into that space. So, it was designed to change behavior to become more reliant on the technology, but with the combination of using the digital, but knowing that we’re there. So, how it affects our employees. I think our employees also had somewhat of a sigh of relief that our members had somewhere to go. We could go in as members, as well. And they’ve appreciated that. We did listen to members. We didn’t just say, “We know better than our members; we’re not going to build these branches.” And I think from a culture perspective, the fact that we say we co-create with members, and we actually do.

Gina Bleedorn (14:38): Sherry, some of the things that are unique about how you approach branching, you started to talk about, and they’re really indicative of where the whole industry is going. As you were saying, we want to have teller lines in our branch of the future. We don’t want to have people sitting behind TCRs, and because again, you got to build from scratch, you are still competing with member expectation from other experiences. Your members were used to branches. The State Employees Credit Union that you talked about, SECU, but they were used to that experience, which was very traditional. But I give your team so much credit back to that fearlessness around that. I talk about fear of change that I actually think is the biggest inhibiting force in transformation period. And your team wasn’t afraid, and you built teller line list branches, they can still service transactions, but you also built spaces for community. You were talking about that too.

And so some of the characteristics of the branches that you opened was a minimal amount of built out space, which was also part of our timing issue. We didn’t have quite as much time to build out massive architectural features. So it had a dual purpose, but the reconfigurability for small intimate events, for large events, for private events for you to use, for your members to use, for the community to use for training, all of those things.

So speak a little bit about how that new experience, what the benefits have been. I know it’s also come with some challenge in changing of behavior and changing of behavioral expectations, but once you can get over that hump and you’re in the process of doing that now, you’ll have a much more ideal experience. So talk a little bit about the actual approach to the design of the branches, the things you did, and what the benefits and maybe also challenges have been.

Sherry Bear (16:39): With the design, we wanted to look at a combination of service and hospitality because the hospitality element, I believe it was Maya Angelou who said, “You might not remember the words someone used, but you’ll always remember how they made you feel.”

Juliet D’Ambrosio (16:55): Yes, I love that quote.

Sherry Bear (16:57): I do, too. And it’s so true because when you think about it yourself, how something someone made you feel or something you experience, and so that’s how those branches, the concept is built when right now we are transforming, like I said in June and July, these functioned as traditional branches. We had lines out of the door, I mean just numerous people coming in looking for the teller line and they functioned like that.

So now we have to make sure our staff that was there during that time period also starts to now transition to the real concept of what the branches are. We have currently over the last couple of months, myself and a couple of other folks have been going across the state, and we set up member events where members could come. We talk to them about challenges that we’ve had, things that we are working on that we maybe we have not have done well, what we’re fixing, and they have chance to answer questions, but our next round of what we do will be in our branches.

These branches are for our members to come to. So we will be there inviting them in, because this is one thing we heard from our members is, “I want to use the digital and the technology, but I’m not comfortable with it. I don’t feel like I know how to use it.” Well, that’s what our branches are there for. So, we are setting up will be after the first of the year doing these events, letting our members know, “Come by the branch. We’re here.”

That way we actually start moving into more of that community center and having more events with our partners in these branches going out into the community. When I say community, I mean our community of local government, because we’re not community chartered. We serve local government, but local government is everywhere. And that’s how we are looking at this as a time for us now to invite people to the branch and invite them for another reason besides doing a transaction.

Juliet D’Ambrosio (18:54): Yeah. Sherry, I am struck as I hear your perspective on both the change, but also how you are tackling some of the challenges and literally holding your members’ hands through some of these changes and listening, just the sheer power of listening to your members, understanding where they need help in adopting this change and being right there with them.

I don’t mean to embarrass you, but I believe that this is likely one of the reasons that you’ve recently been named a finalist in the Credit Union Times Luminary Awards, which recognizes your leadership, your empowering leadership style, and your commitment to just ensuring that the credit union does just that: staying focused on your mission and stays centered on your members.

You started talking about the values-driven organization, and why that’s so important to you. I find your values, which are “People first, Planet always, Prosperity for all,” I find them highly inspirational. Can you tell me a little bit about how those values became a platform for your decision-making both around your branch design and your branch build, but also all of the ways that you are helping to create a member centered, community focused credit union?

Sherry Bear (20:24): Oh, great question. Our CEO and our board have been very involved and engaged in the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. So banking on values became a big component for us, and that is a part of that triple bottom line: “People first, Planet always, Prosperity for all.” How do we serve our members in North Carolina, which is a super-fast growing state, and stay true to those values? So with the people first, obviously our members, our employees, but our family members, as you can imagine over the last couple of years, so many of our staff that were engaged in working with the data and making sure we could do this conversion of data and move all of the processes to us and away from SECU. It was hours of work. So, it’s all of the people: it’s our vendors who’re very respectful with one another.

We believe in that planet always is how does that component build into our products, our services, the branches. That was huge for us using sustainable product in the materials, whether or not it was building materials, materials for furniture, that was a key component. One of the next things we need to do, we know that an overwhelming majority of our LGFCU traditional members still get paper documents. And so we think about the trees, but also how many vehicles is that paper statement going into? So, we need to transition to match our values.

Then prosperity for all. We serve all over the state of North Carolina. We have large cities, we have thriving communities. We have some communities that are not as thriving and also are shrinking, but we serve all members of the state. Our values are such a key component of what we do, and we truly try to live the values and not just say them or put them on the walls of the branch and they look good and they sound good, but how are we really authentic to those values? And it’s not always easy because we need to get things done, and it’s easy sometimes to just pick something and use it and not consider the values, but they are critical to us and who we are.

Juliet D’Ambrosio (22:39): Sherry, thank you for that because we talk a lot about what it means to be a values-driven organization or a purpose-driven organization. And for credit unions, it seems self-explanatory. It’s people helping people. But here you describe the very specific ways that your “triple bottom line values” become a tool for decision-making. I think that’s where the rubber really meets the road in that the values, they are lived, but they are also, they make some of your decisions clearer even if they’re not easier.

There is something that I’ve been thinking about when you describe the organization as digital-first or a digital-first credit union, but that doesn’t mean digital only. How do your values and having that “people first, planet always,” et cetera, how does that help you maintain that idea of being a digital-first credit union especially, what does your commitment to digital first look like in the future?

Sherry Bear (23:46): So the digital piece is a key component in enabling our members to do their banking when they want to, on their own time. And the tools allow them to do that.

Juliet D’Ambrosio (24:00): Sherry, it goes back to what Gina mentioned at the beginning, and maybe you don’t think of yourself or the organization like this, but a sense of real fearlessness to not only how the credit union is operating, but enabling and empowering that fearlessness with your own members to embrace these tools as exactly what they are. They are just tools to ultimately have the best possible service experience. And that fearlessness has been a throughline across all of the transformation. And sometimes you wouldn’t necessarily put a credit union that serves local government employees and the word fearless together in the same sentence, but in this case it absolutely does.

If you are thinking about another financial institution, a credit union, a bank that is navigating the same level of retail transformation that you have recently helped lead, what’s one piece of advice you would offer them and how can they benefit a little bit from that mindset of fearlessness that you brought to this change?

Sherry Bear (25:12): I would say you got to let perfect go, and we knew when we had that goal set for those 11 branches in one year, if we think we’re going to be perfect, we are going to lose this game. That has to go out the window. The fearlessness part [means] don’t look for perfect. Don’t be afraid that it’s not going to be what the end piece looks like because it can always change. That was something Gina mentioned earlier about the branch style that we built. We can make changes if we need to make some type of change. The overall concept, we want to stay the same, but I would say you’ve got to let that go. You’ve got to set your goal and say, I’m going to meet this goal. I’m not going to let distractions get in the way. If one pops in the way, how do we work around it?

But one of the key things is you just got to pick the right people. Whether or not it’s dedication, commitment, creativity, leadership, the mission is important to them. Whatever those components are, pick the right team who can mesh together, that don’t second guess each other, because you can’t do this without multiple teams being involved. We had our core group and then multiple teams will get involved and they’re not doing it day in and day out, and it’s harder for them to jump from a traditional model into what we were building. So you have to jump on that early, you got to know who your members are.

I’ll say for us; it doesn’t seem like with local government as a membership that you would be thinking these are really progressive groups, but they actually are. When we look at, in particular in North Carolina, types of energies that they’re using, solar, electric vehicles, thermal. They’re building government buildings, their local government buildings using thermal, and they’re looking at affordable housing. They are looking at North Carolina being a fast-growing state, which means local government has to grow, but the young people are not picking it as a career choice. So how do you get people interested in it as a career choice? How do they address mental health issues? It’s very easy to understand why in fire EMS police there would be those issues.

And there’s a lot of pressure on local government employees to deliver, and we ultimately want to be a part of that. How can we be a part of getting people interested in that career choice? How do we have our values similar to them, like the sustainable energy? We feel like we won the lottery with the ecosystem that we’re a part of with local government. It’s exciting. It’s exciting for us, and we love being able to serve in that group, especially because they’re the ones that serve our communities.

Gina Bleedorn (28:02): It’s so exciting and refreshing and really inspiring to hear all these innovation levels that you and the credit union and even in a way the state of North Carolina are bringing to bear and all of the things that you have done to be purpose-driven and live that. Even in spite of and amidst a great change and challenge, you are still saying you feel lucky and that you’ve won the lottery.

I get you had to face greater challenges than most ever do, and you faced them honorably and did incredible things, which is why you are a luminary, a CU Times Luminary, among other things. It’s been an honor to be partnered with you, as I mentioned, but to see this come to bear, because this has all been led by you and the credit union. So, it is abundantly clear that you believe in banking. We ask our guests this question, so I will ask you, why do you truly Sherry Bear believe in banking?

Sherry Bear (29:13): Well, banking is a part of our lives and you can’t get around – how do you make purchases, wow do you pay bills, how do you live, how do you save? I believe in banking because it does allow us to live our best financial lives. We all want to, when we’re young, we’re thinking about buying a car and then we’re thinking about buying a home, and then we’re thinking about traveling and how does banking play into that? So it helps us lead our best life. But believing in banking helps us, especially in my job with supporting our members and strengthening our communities in North Carolina and just empowering people to meet goals. So I don’t look at banking as just transactional, and that is not what we’ve tried to create at Civic. We don’t want our members to look at it as just transactional. So many more things that become a part of that with caring and with purpose. So, ultimately we want to use banking for good, I guess you would say, is how do we help our members live their best lives in a way that meets their needs?

Juliet D’Ambrosio (30:19): Sherry, so much in what you said, it just comes down to some of the fundamentals of why we all do what we do: which is to serve. And in your case, what you see banking as a way to serve people in their lives and how civic Federal Credit Union now serves your members, serves your employees, ultimately serves your communities, which makes me understand why you use the term joy so many times as you were talking about your path there and what you do, that real joy in service. And it has been a joy to have this conversation. Thank you,

Gina Bleedorn (31:00): Sherry, thank you. Just an incredible conversation. I know it’ll provide inspiration to our listeners as it did to us and keep leading change.

Sherry Bear (31:10): Thank you. It’s really been a lot of fun. I appreciate the opportunity to do this with you both and I’ve enjoyed it.

Outro: You’ve been listening to Believe in Banking, a podcast series created to empower decision makers, influencers, and industry leaders in financial services.

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