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James Sackett, director at Firefly Credit Union, awarded at CUES Directors Conference.
James Sackett, board director at $1. 3 billion Firefly Credit Union in Burnsville, Minnesota, was named the 2018 CUES Distinguished Director award winner at CUES Directors Conference in Hawaii. CUES Distinguished Director award honors strong, CUES member volunteers whose achievements have strengthened their credit union.
Sackett was the first millennial to join the Firefly CU board in January 2015; he brings a fresh perspective to the board room to drive the movement forward, challenge the status quo, and actively represent the critical millennial generation.
"At Firefly, we take board succession and board diversity very, very seriously. Hopefully that's reflected in the table of folks that we have up here and some of the actions that we do in our community back in Minnesota,” he said, accepting his award. “I would challenge everybody in this room and in the sessions as we go through here to re-examine what you have in place for succession planning, and what are you really doing to be creating opportunities for new people to join the board? What are you doing to reach out to them and bring them in and give them the opportunities to contribute and give back—and hopefully make sure that the future of the movement continues to stay bright."
As a board member, Sackett continues to push toward a culture of continuous learning and improvement around ideas such as training requirements, external training, socialization of best practices, and developing a forum for idea sharing for strategic discussion. He leads by example, attending and completing multiple professional development training courses and encouraging others to become well-informed in credit union matters as well. He is a consistent advocate for board member accountability, meeting preparation, and offering perspectives on the credit union movement.
In addition, Sackett initiated the process to formally define and document Firefly CU’s merger and acquisition policy, was the leading advocate for increasing the credit union’s social media usage and portfolio and has attended community education events presented by Firefly CU to ensure the offerings presented to members and the community are of value.cues icon
