Marla Shepard

With more than three decades of experience in the industry, Marla Shepard has participated in the rise of credit unions as financial alternatives to commercial banks. “I married a Marine, moved to San Diego and was desperate to get a job,” Shepard recalls. A friend suggested trying out credit unions; Shepard says she fell in love with the concept of a financial institution that was nonprofit and owned by members.

Shepard rose through the ranks to become the CEO of the former Santel Credit Union, which by 2001 had amassed $450 million in member shares. In 2001, Santel merged with Kearny Mesa Financial Credit Union and its $160 million, and was reborn First Future Credit Union, with Shepard as CEO and a community charter that means virtually anyone can join.

Now larger than all but a few of San Diego-based commercial banks at about $840 million, First Future raised its profile in February with a television ad campaign designed to attract new members.

“The feedback is very good,” Shepard reports. “As soon as we started, deposits grew by $15 million. “We’re getting good feedback from the branches and new members as a result.”

The campaign arrived just in time to shore up loan demand, which Shepard says has seen “a significant reduction in all areas,” including credit unions’ bread and butter, mortgages and car loans.

“Consumers are a bit tapped out, and on the real estate side most of the refinancing has already been done,” she explains.

In response, First Future is marketing a 30-year mortgage with both low-fee and no-fee products at rates Shepard says are “very competitive.”

Encouraged by low delinquency rates, Shepard says First Future is looking to increase its credit card lending and lines of credit. As the CU pushes to $1 billion, Shepard says her five-year plan includes focusing on branch growth.

This year, First Future plans branch openings in Temecula and Poway and wants to add an office a year over the next five years.