When leadership sets the standard: Herb Wegner Award winners and the underserved Hispanic communities they chose to serve

There is a particular kind of leadership that does not wait for permission. It does not study the political climate to see which way the wind is blowing. It remembers why the institution exists and moves, deliberately and consistently, toward the people it was built to serve.

On Monday, two credit union leaders, Kathy Chartier, President and CEO of Members Credit Union, and Steven Stapp, President and CEO of Unitus Community Credit Union, received the Herb Wegner Memorial Award, the highest individual honor in the credit union movement.

The Wegner Award is not about asset size or growth curves. It recognizes leaders whose work advances the cooperative purpose by expanding access, strengthening communities, and setting standards others can follow.

What makes this year’s recognition especially meaningful is not only who is being honored, but what their leadership represents. Operating on different coasts, with different balance sheets and business models, both leaders independently led their institutions toward the same outcome: sustained, authentic service to underserved Hispanic communities.

That convergence matters.

Members Credit Union is a small and mighty institution. That makes Kathy Chartier’s leadership all the more instructive.

I have worked with credit unions of every size across the country, and one lesson shows up again and again: impact is driven far more by clarity of purpose than by scale. Members is a clear example of that truth.

Rather than viewing size as a limitation, Members have used focus, proximity, and balance-sheet discipline to protect households that were being actively harmed by the financial system. One of the clearest expressions of that commitment has been Members’ work to refinance predatory mortgage loans held by non-citizen households, families who were charged excessive interest rates not because of risk but because of vulnerability.

Through close collaboration with trusted community partners, Members identifies borrowers trapped in exploitative loans and replaces them with fair, sustainable mortgage financing. Since 2021, the credit union has refinanced more than 70 such mortgages, preventing foreclosures, stabilizing monthly housing costs, and preserving family wealth. Over the life of those loans, families will save millions of dollars, capital that stays in households and neighborhoods rather than being extracted by predatory lenders.

This work is supported by deep internal alignment. All Members Credit Union staff are certified financial counselors, ensuring that guidance, not product volume, anchors every interaction. A majority of the staff is bilingual, allowing members to engage fully and confidently without language acting as a barrier. Governance and leadership reflect the diversity of the community served, reinforcing trust and accountability.

Members’ commitment is also physical and place-based. The credit union deliberately chose to relocate its branch to an underserved Hispanic community, bringing access, counseling, and lending directly to the neighborhood rather than expecting families to travel elsewhere for fair financial services.

Members earned their Juntos Avanzamos designation a decade ago, long before serving Hispanic communities became a widely discussed strategy. That timing matters. This was not a response to a trend. It was a long-term commitment, sustained year after year, rooted in the belief that protecting vulnerable borrowers is core cooperative work.

This did not happen by accident. It required intentional choices, internal discipline, and a willingness to prioritize mission even when doing so was not the easiest path.

At Unitus Community Credit Union, Steven Stapp has demonstrated how a larger institution can embed inclusion directly into its operating infrastructure.

In 2025, Unitus launched a small business lending platform designed to remove friction and accelerate access to capital. The program offers loans between $50,000 and $250,000 and sets a three-year goal of deploying $5 million. In its first year alone, Unitus originated 127 loans totaling $2.6 million, with more than 80 percent going to women-, minority-, and veteran-owned businesses.

Equally important was how the platform worked. Underwriting that once took weeks or months was reduced to hours, removing a barrier that disproportionately affects small business owners operating with limited margins, language barriers, or informal advisory networks.

That same philosophy shows up across Unitus’ consumer and mortgage lending through ITIN-based loans, expanding access for immigrant households historically excluded from traditional credit channels. It shows up in staffing, with more than 50 bilingual employees today, compared to just a handful less than a decade ago. It shows up in transparency, with annual reports, community impact reporting, and annual meetings offered in Spanish.

Unitus holds a long-standing Juntos Avanzamos designation and has built durable relationships with Hispanic chambers of commerce, community organizations, and cultural institutions. It hosts community events such as a fall Mariachi Festival, recognizing that trust is built not only through products, but through a visible, consistent presence. The credit union is also launching embedded international remittances within its digital banking platform, providing faster, more affordable cross-border transfers for members supporting family abroad.

This is not a program layered on top of the institution. It is inclusion designed into how the institution works.

Taken together, these two leaders send a clear message. Size does not determine relevance, and geography has never been a good excuse for standing still. Serving underserved Hispanic and immigrant communities is not a niche strategy or a political statement. It is core credit union work.

The Herb Wegner Award has always been about more than individual achievement. It reflects the standards the movement chooses to elevate. This year, those standards point clearly toward leadership that acts with courage, consistency, and long-term commitment.

For credit union leaders reading this, the invitation is not to replicate programs line-for-line. It is to follow the example. Know your community. Commit to the long term. Build products, partnerships, and cultures that reflect who you serve. Accept that this work takes time, trust, and persistence—and that the payoff is measured not only in growth, but in lives protected and futures stabilized.

That is how credit unions have always mattered.

That is how they will continue to matter.