Business View Magazine | January 2021

303 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JANUARY 2021 WEBSTER F I RST FEDERAL CREDI T UNION Federal Credit Union is one of the strongest and most financially stable credit unions and we’re going to continuously look to keep the credit union movement remaining successful here. Our credit union is extremely profitable – we were probably in the top two percent in the country regarding net worth, and safety and soundness, and growth potential.” The company got its start on January 20, 1928, when a handful of Polish men who worked in the mills decided they wanted to provide deposit and loan services to their community and fellow mill workers, so they founded Webster First Credit Union. Through a written agreement, these men associated themselves to establish a thrift institution to accumulate and invest the savings of the members and give these members loans should they require it. Webster First stayed true to its mission despite tough times in the beginning. They came out of the Great Depression intact and continued to serve the local community, even though the mills closed in the 1950s and ‘60s. Lussier admits, “Those times were difficult for the credit union. When things started to change, the economy changed. But as the mills closed, the credit union wanted to continue, so it converted over to a Community Credit Union in the mid ‘50s. Once it became a Community Credit Union it could take pretty much anybody and everybody that lived and worked in the Webster area. It became more of a community institution and not just related to ethnicity and from there it started to grow.” When Lussier became the president and CEO in 1990 he opened several new branches throughout Worcester County and was responsible for nine merger and acquisition deals. He grew the institution to about $250 million and expanded throughout the county. In 1997, the credit union joined the National Association for Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) and added ‘Federal’ to its name. They celebrated the grand opening of their 85,000 sq. ft operations center in Worcester in 2009, which President and CEO, Michael Lussier