Five ways to show your community you care

When I came to Los Alamos in 2012, I knew that Zia Credit Union was in trouble. I was hired to lead the turnaround. We were at .04 ROA. The communities we serve were worried about the health of our credit union and our reputation had been damaged.

We were under unique pressures. We serve two small distinct communities in the beautiful mountains of Northern New Mexico: Española and Los Alamos. Los Alamos is, of course, the home of the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. Española is a historic town with a unique culture of 40,000 residents. Growth in small towns is hard if the community itself is not expanding, and New Mexico’s economy still hasn’t rebounded from the Great Recession.

But at Zia CU, we were able to restore our reputation, grow our loans, re-establish a healthy bottom line, and now I believe we are looked at as a community leader and partner.

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