Bill Healy, team manager (sitting) and Jim Chiaravelle, loan officer of Emery Federal Credit Union review a pending loan application.
By Jill Nagy
Emery Federal Credit Union had barely opened the doors at its new Glens Falls office when the loan applicants began arriving. According to Bill Healy, who heads the office, customers were drawn by word of mouth. “They saw the sign and came in,” he recalled. About 10 people applied for loans in the month since the office opened, about half of them for new loans and half for refinancing. The office is so new that they are still drawing up their marketing campaign.
And Emery is looking for loan officers. Currently, there are three loan officers in the Glens Falls office but the office would like to have 10 or 12 of them. They are looking for people with at least two years of experience as a loan officer and a license from the National Mortgage Loan System (NMLS), which is issued following a background check. The position requires a high school diploma and there is some testing to document knowledge of the banking industry. Emery has just begun to advertise for new employees.
The office, located at 33 Park Street, near Glens Falls Hospital, is the first for Emery in Glens Falls. An office near Clifton Park is their only other facility in the general area. Further expansion in the area depends largely upon the availability of qualified loan officers, Healy said.
Both offices are only lending offices. They offer home mortgages at what Healy terms “super low rates,” for example, 3.75 percent on a 30-year loan.
Borrowers automatically become credit union members and Emery puts $5 into an account for each of them. However, the member has to access that Emery account through another credit union office that participates in “shared branching.” There are about 4,300 of them nationally. The new member can access any credit union service, including savings or checking accounts, through a participating facility. The $5 account is the minimum required to maintain credit union membership.
Emery further sweetens the pot by making a $10 donation on behalf of the borrower to one of three charities; borrowers can choose among Shriners Hospital for Children, a burn hospital that treats children free of charge; the Alzheimers Association; or Honor Flight Tri-State, which flies “war heroes” to Washington, D.C., to visit their war memorial.
Healy notes that, recently, there has been tremendous growth in the credit union industry. However, because Emery is only a lending facility in Glens Falls and Clifton Park, that general growth “has not had a huge effect,” he feels. Elsewhere in this issue of Glens Falls Business Journal, you can read about the expansion of another credit union, the Hudson River Community Credit Union that recently opened a new office in North Troy and has under construction a new operations center in Corinth.
Emery Federal Credit Union is based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1939 to serve employees of Emery Industries. In 1984, it expanded its membership base beyond Emery employees. Like all credit unions, it is a member-owned not-for-profit financial cooperative. In Ohio, Emery offers a full range of banking services, insurance, credit cards, “wealth management” services, and electronic banking.
However, Healy refers to himself as “a local guy.” He grew up in Lake Luzerne. He has been with the company for about four years.
The phone number for Emery Federal Credit Union in Glens Falls is 232-6336.