EXAMINER PROFILE: Dan Mica, President and CEO, Credit Union National Association
BY Dee Ann Divis
Examiner Business Editor
Just a week after Dan Mica arrived to take over as the president of the Credit Union National Association, the organization’s chief financial officer told him they might not make payroll.
Since that day 10 years ago, he has turned around the organization’s finances, won a major legal battle and made the association - which represents 90 percent of the nation’s credit unions - into one of the most effective political organizations in the country.
The first outsider ever hired for the top position, Mica is now the association’s longest-serving president. After taking the helm, the former congressman moved the majority of association operations to Washington from Madison, Wis., where it was founded in 1934. He tripled the staff, brought a flock of related credit union organizations under the association’s umbrella, and built up the coffers of CUNA’s political action committee to a healthy $3 million annually.
What’s next? That’s what the banks would like to know.
Q: What got you interested in politics?
A: I’ve always had an interest in politics. ... I worked various campaigns and political activities while I was in college and I became friends with a congressman.
Q: What is it about credit unions that keep you interested and engaged?
A: The great thing about credit unions is they truly are the white hats of the financial services industry. They absolutely, without a doubt, will help millions and millions of people every year with some basic financial needs and goals.
Q: When you first came on board, things were pretty tough. The financial situation was rocky. You then lost a major court decision. What was it you did first and why?
A: Things were extremely tight. I had done my own due diligence and found the trade association to be in good financial shape but in need of some political changes that I thought I could bring to the organization. Their for-profit [credit card] entity was in disastrous shape. I discussed it with my board and was assured that it was going to be sold and there would be a big chunk of money just sitting in the bank by the time I signed my contract and arrived. Actually, I signed my contract and arrived and the deal to sell it fell apart.
Q: So what did you do?
A: We hustled. We worked round the clock for about three months. We were able to restructure the size of the organization and restructure the sale of the credit card operation. The good news was we were able to pretty much make the investors in the for-profit entity whole as far as what their investment went.
Q: There was an appeals court decision around this time that could have forced many credit unions to drop members that were not part of their credit union’s original organizing group.
A: We had just sold the business that had been losing money and creating financial problems. ... We had literally inked the agreement when, the same day, the appeals court ruled against us and it started all over again. My general counsel walked in and said, “I know we were going to have this celebration next week, but you need to know that we just lost a court case that could shut down the credit union movement in the United States.” It was going to the Supreme Court. If we lost this, millions of credit union members would have been required to give up their membership - tens of millions. So the celebration for getting our finances straightened out never took place. We went from around-the-clock meetings on finances… to legal issues and preparing for this court case. We spent an awful lot of time finding lawyers. In fact, the lawyer we used to defend us was John K. Roberts - a great young attorney ... [and now] the new chief justice. He did a marvelous job, but we lost 5-4.
Q: The Supreme Court ruled in February 1998 against allowing a group like the employees of dry cleaners to join a credit union formed by an unrelated group like the employees of a separate car factory. Congress changed the law in August 1998. What role did you and the Credit Union National Association play in changing the law?
A: We started a massive campaign on Capitol Hill. I had the heavy-weight burden, and I would say the good fortune, of coordinating that campaign. That is when I really learned about the true nature of credit unions. People believe in credit unions like in no other financial entity on the face of the Earth. They’re willing to walk. They’re willing to march. They’re willing to write. They’re willing to call - by the tens of thousands, and our research says by the tens of millions. That is something I think the bankers totally miss. [Banking] is a job and it is a career and it is a way to financial success and security. For credit unions, it is a job, it’s a career and it is a belief - close to a religion. ... How profit is not what we are all about - and that’s where the division and the difference truly comes.
Q: You have a brother in Congress. Was politics always the focus of your family?
A: We have kind of a joke about this. Yes, we’ve always been involved in politics. There are three brothers: John [is] my older brother, I’m the middle bother and Dave is the younger brother. All three, in one way or another, have been involved in politics. And then we have a sister - her name is Cookie; she is married to a minister - and they pray for us.
Q: What is it like - you being a Democrat and your brother being a Republican?
A: John says that he thinks ... we may be only brothers to have been in opposite parties. We don’t talk politics too often. We agree on a few things, but we have strong disagreements on other items.
Q: There was a hearing this fall on the tax-free status of credit unions. Can you talk about that issue?
A: The banks have been pressing to tax credit unions, they say, to “level the playing field.” So we had the hearing and the bankers, I believe, felt that member after member would step forth and talk about the need to tax credit unions. What happened was exactly the reverse. A number of members did talk about credit unions doing more - needing to do more and prove they are doing more to serve the underserved - but every single congressman, Democrat and Republican said, “I am not interested and do not want to tax credit unions.”
Q: Are there other hot-button issues for credit unions?
A: The day-to-day issues include things like regulatory relief, something we call prompt corrective action, member business lending. Now banks - I don’t want to pick on banks. They make a career of picking on us. For 75 years [we have] always taken the approach that we do not go out and attack banks for the sake of attacking banks. We either seek what we think we need to have a good operating environment or we respond to their attacks. I would say that we are about to reach from a minority to a majority who say we should go on the attack because it has gone on so long. Right now it is a slim majority that say that we should seek only what we need and respond only to the attacks and we should not go proactive - what they’ve been doing to us all these years. People are getting a little weary of it and there are a number in our movement that say it is time now to go on an all-out assault and show the hypocrisy for what it is.
STATISTICS
Full name: Daniel Andrew Mica
Age: 61
Birthplace: Binghamton, N.Y.
Education: B.A. in education, 1966, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Fla.
Family: He and Martha, his wife of 39 years, have two daughters and two sons: Christine, Andrew, Caroline and Paul
Congress: Represented Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979-89, serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Select Committee on Aging, and Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
MICA’S FAVORITES
- Music: Ray Charles, Norah Jones
- Book: Just read “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century” by Thomas L. Friedman; all Dan Brown books.
- Restaurant: High-end for anniversaries: Citronelle; for a quick bite, Primo’s at the Belle Haven Shopping Center in Alexandria
- Sport: For participation, golf; for viewing, football
- Retreat: A quiet mountain cabin in North Carolina; a quiet place in Southern Florida
- Hero: Thomas Jefferson
- Heroine: His wife, Martha
http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/12/23/features/profiles/30profile20mica.txt