That remains the case today, with its nearly 530,000 credit union members — consumers and businesses — collectively having almost $9 billion, Tim Mislansky, WPCU’s president and chief executive since November 2021, said in a new interview.
As part of the credit union’s expansion in fast-growing central Ohio, WPCU acquired land this summer in New Albany, northwest of Columbus, for $2.1 million. A glance at a map confirms that the new member center won’t be far from Intel’s dual chip fabrication plants.
That move was made more than a year after the credit union spent $1.2 million to buy property in Whitehall, west of Columbus.
And in March, WPCU broke ground for a member center in Polaris, north of Columbus.
The Dayton area remains the credit union’s home, Mislansky said in an interview from his company’s Pentagon Boulevard headquarters. Last year, the business opened a member’s center in Vandalia.
But when asked about the central Ohio investments, he said: “There are only so many people in Dayton, Ohio. So as we looked at markets — and this started about 10 or 12 years ago — Columbus being the state capital, having the Ohio State University there, some really strong, stable employment bases ... there’s an opportunity for us again to bring Wright Patt Credit Union benefits to a larger percentage of the population.”
The WPCU “origin story” may be familiar by now: In the early 1930s, in the throes of the Great Depression, a Wright Field employee was forced to quit his job through illness or bad luck. Some of his co-workers banded together and raised a $5.50 loan for him, putting quarters in a shoebox.
“When he was able to come back to work, he slowly started paying them back,” Mislansky recalled.
From such humble beginnings WPCU was born, becoming the not-for-profit collaborative that still serves today’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as well as others in the Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati markets.
“They own this institution,” Mislansky said. “I often tell our employees, ‘The reason we have good jobs here is because there are a half-million people who trust us to take care of their money.”
So far this year, member growth is up about 5%, with deposits and loans both up about 7% or more.
The credit union also reaches for new markets. Its SOAR Business Loan and Outreach program is designed for small businesses, aimed at qualified businesses owned by veterans, women and minorities.
“At the end of the third quarter, we’ve done about 350 loans,” Mislansky said. “About $8 million. And those are generally done in $50,000 to $250,000 slots.”
They’re not huge loans, he acknowledges. “But we’re investing in people investing in their communities,” the CEO said.
WPCU in 2018 confirmed plans to offer banking services to legally licensed medical marijuana businesses, and as of April 2022 the business claimed to have the largest marijuana-related business market share in Ohio.
Today, the credit union says it has nearly 90 marijuana-related clients working with the credit union’s “marijuana-related business banking” team.
“It’s a priority of ours to serve these businesses as best we can,” WPCU said in a statement. “Our goal all along is to make sure this industry is banked and that these businesses can operate in an orderly and compliant manner. It’s what’s best for these businesses and the communities they serve.”
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