Economic Engines
UCCU (more formally known as Utah Community Credit Union) has been a fixture of the Utah Valley community for decades. Its roots go all the way back to 1955, when credit unions were still a relatively novel concept in the United States. Seven BYU employees pooled their assets to form a not-for-profit financial institution that initially conducted its business from a table on a stair landing. In 2025, UCCU has many more direct employees and serves more than 285,000 members. It has a flourishing partnership with Utah Valley’s other university (UVU) and even amended its charter in 2024 to permit memberships and offer services outside Utah. That’s because so many people have taken its slogan “Love where you bank” to heart that they didn’t want leave UCCU behind, even after moving away.
I came to UCCU in 2001 where I started in finance before moving to operations. When you work in operations at a financial institution, you deal with people and their money directly. You’re helping with loans and new accounts and answering their questions. I became a lending authority in that process, and I started helping people get a home equity loan or buy the car they needed to get to work. I fell in love with the idea of giving someone the keys to their home thanks to helping them get an affordable loan.
We don’t have stockholders or shareholders. The members are our owners, and we operate for them and them only. I love the idea of people helping people. Once I was working with a woman who was having some hard times. I helped her get a small loan, and in that process, identified other loans she could move to the credit union and free up around $500 a month. When I told her what we could do, she got very emotional, and she said, “My husband passed away a few weeks ago, and I’ve got these three little kids at home. I’ve never dealt with the finances. I can’t believe you just got me $500 extra a month.” I got addicted to that feeling of really helping people with their money.
I participated in a project to create an internet loan product. I was asked to sit on the project team because of my lending experience. This was before smartphones existed. After that project was successful, the chief information officer (CIO) at the time said, “Hey, you’re good at this. You really ought to work with us.” I made the move, and that eventually got me to a career leading our digital banking team, implementing the first versions of our mobile banking apps, mobile deposits and our card app with our team. I learned a whole new skill set, which led to me becoming CIO myself. I led a broad team, handling everything from cybersecurity and digital banking to data center management, infrastructure and payments.
When it came time to replace my predecessor, Bret VanAusdal, as CEO, the board asked the executive team if any of us were interested in interviewing to take his place. Bret had been a phenomenal CEO; I really felt like a boy among giants whenever I was in a room with him. It was so humbling to be chosen. There are so many good and talented people at the credit union and beyond. I hope I represent our team really well, because they’re all so good at what they do.
I’m proud of our merger with TransWest Credit Union, which was completed earlier this year. They were a phenomenal institution, great leadership team, incredible members. We have such similar shared values. The whole process typically takes a little over a year to work with regulators, both the Utah State Department of Financial Institutions and federal regulators, as well as all the legal hoops and paperwork — and then you get to the system conversion work of actually making the two financial institutions one. That’s tedious work, and our team pulled off that system conversion in five months, which is just incredible.
When it comes to the UCCU Soccer Stadium, I think our investment in Utah Valley University is an investment in the bright future of the students who attend it and the community it operates in.
This year UVU had 11,000 graduates, people who are now better equipped to contribute in meaningful fields and help their communities solve complex issues. UCCU, as an employer, relies on those 11,000 graduates to staff our IT teams, finance teams, marketing teams and so on. I am a UVU graduate. My wife graduated from UVU with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and was a registered nurse for 16 or 17 years in our local hospital systems. Ninety percent of the graduates from UVU still live in Utah Valley one year later, and 78 percent still live here 10 years later. Forty-one percent of the students who come to UVU are first-generation students in their families. That’s a powerful statistic for us in terms of elevating the financial futures of those individuals.
“We have to be a vibrant institution that’s fueled by talented, purposeful people,” says CEO Justin Olson. “Talented people instill trust in others. People have to trust the institution they bank with.”