Business View Magazine | December 2020

217 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2020 ELGA CREDI T UNION than a few community events and partner with a number of non-profit organizations to earn that presence in the community. Folks out there see that, and they want to be a part of what we’re building. When someone opens an account, we always ask what brought them in. Often they’ll tell us: ‘I see you guys everywhere. You’re always doing such great things in the community.’ I think that’s what makes us stand out.” With long-time CEO, Karen Church, set to retire next year, Katzur will take the reins after 25 years of service to the cooperative. He recalls, “I started with the credit union as a co-op student when I was 16 years old. It was just going to be a high school job. Twenty-five years later, I’m still here and that’s because of the work culture. It’s like a family. It’s not just co-workers, you have an entire support system of 250 people who genuinely care about you, from the top down. And that makes people want to stay.” Church echoes Katzur’s sentiment that ELGA CU has a great team who understand how important it is to add value to what members are looking for. “They work hard to do that,” she says. “They enjoy helping people and making decisions with them. Helping them figure out solutions. We’ve got a really young, energetic group. I didn’t fully understand the impact of “giving ourselves” to the people in the community until well into my tenure. We started doing it because we thought it was the right thing to do, and the more we did, the better we understood that people really appreciate that. They want to do business with people who care enough about their organizations, about their lives, to participate in them.” That is the ELGA way – everybody sharing in the successes of the credit union together.