Chip Filson
Smart Children: If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.
Parents: If you nurture your children, you can spoil your grandchildren. But if you spoil your children, you’ll have to nurture your grandchildren.
National Parks: “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”
The best times of our lives are not about what we did, but who we were with.
Twenty three million American households acquired a pet during the COVID-19 crisis
Alix and Murphy
Will you hold my hand
will you guide me home
will you show me the way
when my light has gone?
When I can’t see where to go
when I don’t know what to do
when I’m lost and alone
will you stay with me?
When you can’t see where to go
when you don’t know what to do
when you’re lost and alone
I will stay with you.
MURPHY
We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience. John Dewey
I often tell people that many of the things we do don’t always make sense to business students– but I believe that’s part of our secret sauce. While data is important, people are more important, and our formula has always been based on taking care of people. Doug Fecher, Retired CEO, Wright-Patt Credit union
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today. Laurence J. Peter, Canadian writer
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion
Didion also asks, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, what happens when you can’t trust the narrator? How do you know whose story to believe? What happens when all stories are both believable by some and unbelievable by others? What happens to that community storytelling creates when the members no longer agree about their story? Dr. Andrew Roth
There’s a difference between a procedure update and a process improvement. A procedure update might edit step nine in a 10-step sequence. A process improvement reconsiders why there are 10 steps at all. Jimmy Lovelace, Senior Vice President, Community First Credit Union of Florida
A writer annoys his readers by writing too much.
For weekend reading: It’s Time to Remind Members They are Owners, by Henry Wirz, Retired CEO, Safe Credit Union
As leaders celebrate the known wins in the books for 2021, there is also the need to anticipate what lies ahead in the New Year. Will it be better or worse? More of the same, or changes planned?
One approach to this forward-looking exercise is situational awareness, sometimes abbreviated SA.
The concept was developed primarily by the military. It is a skill to improve one’s ability to identify potential threats, be more ‘present’ and aware of your surroundings in combat.
The term has also been used to analyze danger in various worker environments where the potential for accidental injury is great. Some even apply the concept to personal safety where one might be at risk such as traveling in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night.
A frequent reference to this ability to react in a situation is sports competition.
Success does not always go to the strongest or fastest athlete, but to those that have a superior “feel for the game.”
My son-in-law played offense tackle for Stanford when the team was coached by Bill Walsh, a former NFL coach, considered a master offensive tactician.
Walsh would always script his team’s first offensive drive with 6-8 set plays so that he could see how the defense reacted. Based on what he learned would determine how he then approached the overall game plan previously drawn up.
In basketball one of the elite players at every level was Bill Bradley who played at Princeton, for the New York Knicks as well as being the only collegiate player selected for the 1964 US Olympic team in Tokyo.
A description of his extraordinary sense for the ever-changing dynamics of the game is described in A Sense of Where You Are, the story of his senior year at Princeton and his preternatural feel for the game.
In choosing the title, the author quotes Bradley:
“When you have played basketball for a while, you don’t need to look at the basket when you are in close like this,” he said, throwing it over his shoulder again and right through the hoop. “You develop a sense of where you are.”
At one point the author takes Bradley to a Princeton ophthalmologist to see if his skill is due to an expanded range of peripheral vision versus a normal person’s. The tests show he has both greater horizontal and vertical range. But that does not explain the instinctive way he applied his talent. That analysis takes the rest of the book!
For many their first experience of situational analysis is when a teacher claims to have “eyes in the back of her head” so you had better be careful what you do.
The Wharton Business school offers an online course which applies the theory and practice of situational analysis to business and political leadership. The initial lecture and course description is here.
The course extends the concept beyond its military and industrial origins to understand what happens in organizations. How do critical elements in the environment change over time?
Many neglect this analysis because they’re so focused on a particular plan or task that they take for granted essential factors in projecting the near future.
It’s a mindset of not paying attention to one’s surroundings. Or as the British writer George Orwell observed: “People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes.
Situational awareness identifies the elements in the environment that are important, changing and create greater uncertainty about the near future. No matter one’s experience in a role, understanding the total environment in which the organization functions is critical for effective leadership.
This analysis is front and center in New Year predictions. Or necessary anytime a future course is being planned.
The Wharton program suggests using a four-quadrant model to identify situations that are important and unimportant, and familiar to unfamiliar.
The critical events are those that are important and unfamiliar, the upper right quadrant below. The goal is to be more aware of these challenges and take care to understand variable risks, uncertainty, what is moving around, and how to respond.
My list of evolving situations that the credit union system may need to consider differently from their 2021 experiences includes:
How any team completes this exercise depends on their role in an organization. For those at the top, this analysis is most critical.
Bureaucracies by design are bound by organizational processes. When complacency and habit replace vigilance, that is how an organization gets into trouble. Situational awareness is critical to counterbalance this self-approving tendency.
Tomorrow I will provide an example of one credit union’s pivot in response to some of the factors above. I will also share a classic example of robotic performance damaging a critical cooperative institution.
Dayton Ohio is most commonly known as hometown for aviation pioneers and inventor-tinkerers, the Wright Brothers. The local Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was named after them.
On that base in 1932 workers at Wright Field decided to chip in 25¢ a week to help an ailing co-worker and his struggling family. It was this shoebox of money that evolved to become today’s $7.0 billion Wright-Patt Credit Union.
The credit union was planted in this southwestern community of Ohio where inventiveness, hard work and the belief that people take care of each other were long standing values.
Doug Fecher and Wright-Patt Credit Union were made for each other. He grew up in this culture and was reared on its values. His strength, life-long connections and character are rooted in places where he saw people taking care of each other in times of need.
His capabilities perfectly matched the Wright-Patt community when he became CEO in 2001 after the sudden death of his predecessor.
His career did not start with the ambition to become a CEO. After high school, he left for Chef school, thinking academia was not his forte, and where his mother had paid tuition. Changing diection, he then enrolled in the University of Cincinnati and eventually graduated while nurturing curiosity and eclectic interests that made him a lifelong learner.
He began his credit union career as a teller, a short-lived position because of the challenge in balancing out each day’s activity. He then moved on to business development and marketing before joining Wright-Patt as VP of Lending in 1995.
In each phase of life, he developed lasting friendships. At his retirement celebration he recognized grade school friends with whom he had gone scuba diving later as adults, a high school science teacher whose course he barely passed, three generations of his family as well as many professional colleagues. He named each while recounting stories of the positive experiences he gained from these relationships.
His twenty years as CEO spanned unexpected and the most consequential challenges any leader could ever confront: the attacks on 9/11 which kept the US at war for 20 years; the Great Recession of 2008/09; a decade of historically low interest rates; the national economic shutdown of March 2020 resulting in the steepest one quarter drop ever in GDP, and the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.
These were not classroom MBA case studies. They were real-time events requiring immediate actions. The responses affected every person who depended on the credit union to do the right thing for them. In each of crisis, Wright-Patt met every challenge being there for members in spontaneous and creative ways.
When severe economic downturns occurred, he stepped up lending to members for home refinancing or ownership and for car purchases. Fees were waived. The credit union reached peaks in market share as other lenders hunkered down and withdrew in the face of economic uncertainty.
How Doug navigated these times is even more remarkable than Wright-Patt’s continued financial soundness. He believed an organization’s culture, the performance of the entire staff, was what made strategy successful.
He instilled an expectation of unparalleled and consistent member service. Credit unions were founded so people can take care of each other. The model is simple: members entrust their funds to you to use for others who need financial assistance.
He took a fundamental human value and made it new every day. He designed the three-stakeholder model-the staff, the members, and the credit union-to allocate resources fairly and most productively.
His intense focus on service as the ultimate differentiator, helped him avoid shiny objects, such as mergers, bank purchases or personal notoriety, that drew in other CEOs.
Member relationships were rooted in a saying he quoted from his dad, “Son, just remember to take great care of the people around you, and they will amaze you in return by taking great care of you”.
The majority of Wright-Patt members live paycheck to paycheck. Superior service earns their trust and lifelong support. It also strengthens numerous local community institutions that serve these same 445,000 members, including auto dealers, realtors, home builders, and the many retail services and stores necessary to make communities vibrant.
This member loyalty propelled Wright-Patt’s standing from the 95th largest credit union in 2005 to number 40 at yearend 2021. This was accomplished even though the members’ average share balance $10,044 is below the national average of $10,402.
Doug and his team never chased asset growth. Instead, their success was measured by the number of people served and community impact. Today the credit union is present in one of every three households in its Dayton home market.
His oft-stated benchmark for tracking Wright-Patt’s relevance was to ask: If Wright-Patt did not exist today, would our members rise up and create us?
Doug is a lifelong learner. Success did not come because he had a better idea than other CEOs; rather it was his skill implementing the credit union’s priorities. Instinctively he understood leadership as a skill to be mastered. In sports terminology, he would be described as a “natural.”
He is an artisan in the craft of leading others. He took a traditional value-serving others-and made it every staff member’s purpose. In his perspective, credit unions are a movement of people, not money.
At the top of each monthly Partner Update he placed these words:
“Transparency” is an important part of keeping promises. I hope this update is helpful and makes your job easier. Thank you for your interest in how WPCU is serving its stakeholders
Integrity, openness, and honesty are his operating practices. He is eloquent, using member stories he received to make his points. The tag line at the end of every Wright-Patt email summarizes the credit union’s value proposition in six words:
“Save Better. Borrow Smarter. Learn a Lot”
His eloquence is enhanced by his temperament. He never appears angry; he persuades with logic and examples, not arguments. His presence fills every occasion with humor and goodwill, qualities that bring out the best in people.
Doug and his team expanded Wright-Patt’s role throughout the credit union system. He organized, joined or founded numerous CUSO’s including myCUmortgage, CUFSLP, Credit Union Student Choice, Cooperative Business Services, CUSO Financial Services and many more.
He used the financial strength of the credit union to develop a short-term loan option that saved consumers hundreds of dollars in fees charged by payday lenders. This model was eventually adopted by over 100 credit unions sharing in a common loss reserve.
He and his team actively participate in state, national and CUNA leadership responsibilities.
He is a trustee on the Board of Wright State University which enrolls over 11,500 students. As Chairman he helped shepherd the university through the most important decision a board undertakes: a presidential leadership selection and transition.
I asked him to join the board of Callahan’s after the Great Recession, anticipating an upcoming CEO succession. Being a volunteer director in a group of peers is a very different role than the person of final resort as CEO. Developing consensus with other volunteers can, at times, be hard work.
His commitment was unwavering. His wise, perceptive counsel made our whole organization more aware of how credit unions approached their role with members, in the community and with each other.
Doug enjoys many other personal activities such as biking, skiing, motorcycles, playing in a rock group, scuba diving. He undertakes these “hobbies” for fun and as open-ended learning opportunities.
He left his CEO position at the top of his game, following the most successful year ever in the credit union, as measured by returns to the three stakeholders. A courageous choice by someone who sees life full of bountiful possibilities.
His parting was a straight forward announcement in response to my email:
From: Doug Fecher <dfecher@wpcu.coop>
“Thanks for your email. I am out of the office and will not be returning as I am retiring from WPCU after 26 years of service. I will miss this job and the people I’ve been honored to work with and am looking forward to the next chapter in my life.
A successor has been named – please welcome Tim Mislansky as the next President/CEO of Wright-Patt Credit Union. He begins his new role on Monday, January 3rd.”
Doug never forgot where he came from or the people whom he knew along the way—a person of conviction who gave hope and a way forward for others.
He ended a recent conversation with a student interviewing him for her paper on leadership with the offer: “Thanks for connecting with me – please keep my number and if there is any way I could help in the future, please call.”
Talent does an old thing well. Genius makes an old thing new. Doug did both.
Today is the one-year anniversary of an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election by mounting a physical assault on Congress’ certification of the electoral college vote.
There have been and will continue to be newly researched and passionate reporting about the day’s riot and events before and after.
One well-reasoned analysis is a short essay entitled A Day of Infamy, a year later.
I agree with this viewpoint but want to suggest another lesson. Does a latent January 6th gene potentially exist in anyone in authority? Or are required formal processes and structural checks and balances sufficient to inhibit such leadership temptations?
The crime of Trump and his followers was an attempted coup to overturn legal and fiduciary norms of governance and accountable behavior.
Most Americans have or will occupy positions of authority by election, selection or demonstrated merit. For example, most households have a dominate wage earner; sports teams-a chosen captain; each church or non-profit–volunteer boards; and coops led by elected directors.
Every public employee, whether by employment or election serves a constituency to which they should be responsible.
Positions of public authority can bring out the best or sometimes, the worst in people.
Bucky Sebastian and Ed Callahan’s decades long relationship showed the vital role of a leader with the right complementary partner. Ed was an educator, football coach, administrator and powerful motivator–a person skilled in the arts of leadership.
One of Bucky’s important adjunct roles was to be Ed’s “counter-ego,” able to challenge his too emotional reactions to people or situations. When Ed was tempted to counter someone using direct authority (as a football coach might call out), Bucky would confront him urging he should change his approach versus blaming the other.
Every leader needs a Bucky-like figure when inclined to follow their autocratic instincts in exercising power.
Many adults will achieve authority in an organization through personal ambition and effort, whether that role is paid or volunteer. Once achieved, there is a natural belief in the correctness of one’s judgments whether based on vision, factual analysis or using the rationale-that’s why I was chosen (or elected).
This is especially true in governmental employment. Trump’s authoritarian excesses and public delusions are consequential because of the ultimate power and responsibility of the Presidency. Many believe he subverted the very premise of American democracy with his lies about the 2020 election outcome.
He ignored traditional formal processes. There were no longer guardrails the public could rely upon.
Whether elected, appointed or selected through competence, public responsibility is always paired with assumed and/or explicit authority.
From parking enforcement, collecting taxes to setting rules and overseeing them, public roles are different in character from private employment. There is an implied common duty, but often accountability is diffused or lacking.
I believe the Jan. 6th gene is ever-present, latent much of the time, but always ready to be activated in regulatory actions.
The symptoms include unilateral policy diktats, dismissal of inconvenient facts, neglect of administrative oversight, lack of transparency, and most critically, an unwillingness to work mutually with the credit union system.
This authoritarian impulse is most easily seen when those new to the organization first experience the culture. Mark McWatters joined the NCUA Board in August 2014. He described Chairman Debra Matz’s leadership of NCUA during in a public speech several months later:
“NCUA should not treat members of the credit union community as Victorian era children—speak when you’re spoken to and otherwise mind your manners and go off with your nanny—but should, instead, renounce its imperious ‘my-way-or–the-highway’ approach and actively solicit input from the community on NCUA’s budget and the budgetary process. With the strong visceral response within the agency against budget hearings, it seems that some expect masses of credit union community members to charge the NCUA ramparts with pitchforks and flaming torches to free themselves from regulatory serfdom. I, conversely, welcome all comments and criticism from the community.
Regulatory wisdom is not metaphysically bestowed upon an NCUA board member once the gavel falls on his or her Senate confirmation.
NCUA should not, accordingly, pretend that it’s a modern day Oracle of Delphi where all insight of the credit union community begins once you enter the doors at 1775 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia.” (source: CU Today May 19, 2015)
McWatters is a very conscientious individual, courteous in manner with a rational temperament. He approached decisions using detailed legal and logical analysis. His reaction to Matz’s autocratic style only corroborated what credit unions had experienced for years, since the Great Recession and unilateral liquidation of corporates.
The irony is that when McWatters became chairman in January 2016, the agency’s “Stockholm syndrome” effect had overcome this initial misgivings. In 2017 he merged the TCCUSF surplus into the NCUSIF to pay for natural person credit union losses, despite explicit congressional wording against this. When explaining the action, he also admitted circumventing the FCU Act’s limits on premiums.
My immediate concern is that Chairman Harper, who was Matz’s Senior Policy Advisor and protege, also embraces her view of leadership. He has shown by temperament, in board meeting exchanges, and prior actions as senior advisor, that he is not a person who should be leading the cooperative regulatory agency.
His primary justification for policy is because that is how the FDIC functions. I have described these positions with his own words in several articles.
At a time when credit unions are transforming their roles with members due to Covid, Harper’s top priority imposed the hoariest and least relevant of all rules, a 28% immediate increase in minimum capital requirements. Unlike McWatters when confronting the same issue, the current board members blinked and approved this regulatory tax on members and their credit unions.
NCUA’s performance matters because it regulates one of the unique features of cooperatives—the industry’s democratic, member-owner governance.
The concept that credit unions are democratically governed is misleading. Few boards are elected today; most continue through reappointment and renominations when terms expire. Members’ involvement is not sought or encouraged. The idea of a contested election with more nominations than open seats is scary for incumbent directors.
Members are routinely requested by CEO’s and managers to give up their charter via merger for a rhetorically better credit union that members do not know and have no part in choosing. These same “votes” frequently approve significant monetary handouts to departing senior staff who arranged these sales. In one case over $35 million of self-funding was set up by a former CEO who continues working at the merged institution.
Even the hint of an external director nomination by petition can cause a credit union to change its bylaws to prevent such an occurrence. Pentagon FCU did this immediately after a successful at large nomination.
Credit unions in these actions are following the unilateral leadership style they see at NCUA.
Leadership responsibility does entail authority and explicit processes to function. How that authority is implemented is fundamental to the sustainability of the enterprise. Whether that is the American democratic political experiment, or a cooperative charter founded generations ago.
The fate of America may feel bigger than any one individual can influence. But democratic norms and duty are not limited to the Congressional and Presidential elections. It is a skill each can hone whenever we participate in an organization’s governance or membership
The first place to ensure democracy remains meaningful is in the arena s of our participations, no matter how great or how small the organization.
As I consider the January 6th assessments, my hope is that anyone who might carry a gene of this kind, will keep it dormant by exercising democratic efforts in those local and national arenas we care about.
In an article using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the analyst presented the fastest growing and declining job categories in this decade.
The economic health of every community-rural. small town or major urban center-depends on its employment opportunities.
Most credit unions were chartered around places of employment. Corporations such as IBM or International Harvester had dozens of separate credit unions at their numerous work sites. Then when the layoffs, restructuring or even bankruptcies occurred, the credit unions had to change their focus or go out of business.
Employment prospects are critical for every member. Working from home versus commuting or being on the road is now of interest to more persons who have experienced this option during the Covid disruptions.
Credit unions are most critical for members when they first enter the work force, earning income and learning to be their own financial stewards. Some credit unions begin this relationship even earlier with student loan options.
The demographics of job growth affects every one, their communities and almost all organizations that depend on a vibrant economy.
The table below forecasts where the new jobs will be, their rate of growth, and median salaries. Each geographic area will have its own pattern. But this fundamental economic characteristic should be part of every credit union’s planning process.
| Occupation | Percent employment change, 2020–2030P | Numeric employment change, 2020-2030P | Median annual wage, 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wind turbine service technicians | 68.2% | 4,700 | $56,230 |
| Nurse practitioners | 52.2% | 114,900 | $111,680 |
| Solar photovoltaic installers | 52.1% | 6,100 | $46,470 |
| Statisticians | 35.4% | 14,900 | $92,270 |
| Physical therapist assistants | 35.4% | 33,200 | $59,770 |
| Information security analysts | 33.3% | 47,100 | $103,590 |
| Home health and personal care aides | 32.6% | 1,129,900 | $27,080 |
| Medical and health services managers | 32.5% | 139,600 | $104,280 |
| Data scientists and mathematical science occupations, all other | 31.4% | 19,800 | $98,230 |
| Physician assistants | 31.0% | 40,100 | $115,390 |
The full article includes graphs, a table of the fastest declining jobs (parking meter enforcement) and the implications for education and employer job structures.
Several observations on entering the New Year; but first a poetic note of hope.
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by Carrie Williams Clifford (1920)
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As we enter 2022, we must face a “not-normal” world that shows no signs of returning to order. Having the right “improvise-and-dare” attitude will enable us to survive. It will allow us to exploit any good opportunities to act that come our way. It will mitigate the disasters that strike us.
When asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
This December release starred Leonard DiCaprio and Meryl Streep. The story featured two Michigan State academic astronomers who identified a comet heading directly to earth–and the President and public’s response to this “environmental” crisis. One reviewer’s reaction:
I am alive. I exist. I don’t need to be told that humans will choose what feels good over what is right every time.
Honestly, I spent the movie rooting for the comet.
Prophecy remains elusive, for who yet can answer Banquo’s “If you look into the seeds of time/And say which grain will grow and which will not/Speak then to me.” (Macbeth, 1.3, 58-60).
As we begin 2022, I am in awe of the remarkable year just past, and how members and communities across the country benefitted from cooperative efforts.
Credit unions from the earliest days of the pandemic stood tall with their presence, their passion and dedication to service. When the temporary normal returned, they opened up offices with enthusiasm, and understanding—and an unwavering belief in the transformative power of cooperative purpose.
Credit unions ended the year historically strong. They are ready for a new time of vital caring using their unique capacity to combine educational and transactional financial services.
I am eager to share what I hope will be “enduring ideas” with you in coming months. One writer described this need as follows:
Amid the present insecurity, endearing objects (read high net worth ratios) are not enough. Our desire for certainties must also be addressed by turning to the things that feed the soul. We must turn to enduring ideas to anchor us in the storms ahead.
In the mid 1990’s, Navy FCU’s annual report theme was, “Our strength is Our Union.” Today’s message is “Members are Our Mission.”
Both ideas affirm a community’s collective effort to work together. The idea is as old as the preamble to the constitution, “We the People. . . in order to form a more perfect union . . .”
For 2022 that objective, could be the most important goal for the cooperative system. Before looking at this challenge another observation must be noted.
In 2020 and 2021, the credit union system recorded two of the most financially successful years in decades. The double-digit savings growth and continued member expansion were accomplished with zero insurance losses. The results were achieved despite the sharpest recession ever caused by the abrupt March 2020 national economic shutdown. And a pandemic that continues to cause disruption in every area of American life.
The cooperative system proved its resilience while responding to unprecedented member needs.
Projections for the New Year will include the present knowns: inflation, how long and how strong? Covid’s continued presence; the rise in interest rates; ongoing economic growth; cyber worries and crypto opportunities; the midterm elections; and international trade and political challenges.
In my view these are not the primary cooperative challenges. Rather the age-old tension between individual success and system interdependence will continue to play out.
For some there is no issue. Their view is that responsibility extends only to their charter. Whatever the management and board decide to do is their business only. That’s what the members “elected” them to do.
I believe rather that the system is interlinked in multiple ways. This means the reputation and example of one, whether good or ill, affects the perception of all.
The concept that coops take care of each other in times of need, includes both the member-owner and the multiple interlocking systems in which all credit unions operate.
Every credit union is open today because of a legacy handed to them and starting all the way back to the chartering date. These founders began with nothing but a vision of shared effort for the common good.
Some of today’s “leaders” have interpreted their responsibility the opposite of their founders, that is to return their members to their pre-chartering state. And on the way to charter dissolution, help themselves to some of the spoils.
Credit unions are now mid-way through the fifth chapter of their 112 year evolution. Each chapter takes about a generation, or twenty five years. The present chapter dates from 2009 with the Great Recession.
The journey has always included two challenges. One set is the externals of the economy, indifferent regulation, competition and ever present technology change. Credit unions have rarely been found wanting in meeting the realities of a market based system.
When failure occurs, it is the internal journeys where leaders become lost. The idea that every members’ bottom line is the credit union’s, is reduced to only the credit union’s bottom line. Fiduciary duty becomes a singular focus on financial success. And when that becomes too challenging, the result is to throw in the towel and turn the members’ future over to another organization with no relationship or history to them.
I believe this year will be pivotal as to whether credit union leaders can once again put member well- being above institutional and personal self-interest. Can cooperatives restore their roots with the owners whose trust is their real strength, as Navy FCU proclaimed decades ago?
For it is We the People who are responsible for a more perfect union. That is true for both our civic politics as well as our financial cooperatives.