By Geoff Bacino
The op/ed piece , “Supreme Court Decision on Firings at Independent Agencies May be New, But It’s Actually Happened Before at NCUA,” by Chip Filson had some oversights. There was a failure to recognize the extensive regulatory and credit union experience that previous NCUA board members have brought to the agency.
Immediately prior to JoAnne Johnson, NCUA had a chairman in Dennis Dollar who was a credit union CEO and a former state legislator. Mike Fryzel came from the same office as Callahan, so he would fit under the definition. Debbie Matz and Rodney Hood served on the board and were then nominated again, so they obviously had both regulatory and credit union experience. Finally, Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka served on the banking Committees that wrote the legislative language directly affecting credit unions.
Apart from the chair, the NCUA Board has included a number of individuals with credit union experience, including Bob Swan, Dave Chatfield, Rick Metsger, Gigi Hyland and myself. All told, John Crews would become the 24th NCUA Board member. It’s interesting to note that here have been almost twice as many U.S. presidents as NCUA Board members. The club gets even more exclusive when one realizes that only 15 individuals have been designated as NCUA chair.
The Trump v. Slaughter Supreme Court decision will most likely change forever the makeup of the NCUA Board. But credit unions should be comforted by the fact that many former NCUA Board members certainly understood credit unions and how to regulate them.
Geoff Bacino is partner with Bacino and Associates and served on the NCUA board in 2001.
