Jim Miles file
Age: 48
Job: President and chief executive officer of MidUSA Credit Union
Home: Kettering
Family: Wife, Kerri; two sons
Education: Bachelor's of business administration from Miami University
Associations: On the board of trustees of Middletown Area Senior Center Inc.
MIDDLETOWN —What’s in a name?
According to officials at MidUSA Credit Union, the ability to position their company for future growth.
In the past year, MidUSA changed its name from MidFirst, moved a branch from Monroe to Liberty Twp. and is looking to expand, credit union officials said. It is the largest locally-owned, full-services financial organization in Middletown, officials said.
First it was the Armco Steel credit union when it formed here in 1934. Then it became MidFirst Credit Union in 1994 because by then, it had more than 70 select employer groups as members and a new name better represented membership changes, according to the union.
Under Jim Miles’ tenure as president and chief executive officer, the Middletown-grown financial institution became MidUSA.
MidUSA has 53 employees and five total branch locations in Butler, Warren and Montgomery counties now with roughly 24,000 members, according to MidUSA.
Miles has been with MidUSA almost 13 years, becoming the head in 2008.
Q: What is your company best known for?
A: "MidUSA is best known for serving our membership and our local communities for over 76 years. We embrace the fact we're a credit union and therefore, we're here to serve our members. We gauge our success by helping people, our members, along their life's journeys."
Q: What are the major goals the company is currently working on and how is the company working to achieve those goals?
A: "We continue to look for ways to better serve our membership and grow our membership. We spend a lot of time surveying members." He said for approximately four years, the credit union has used secret shoppers to test its service. Surveys say a majority of members prefer to deal with MidUSA and members feel an emotional connection with the credit union.
Q: What are the biggest challenges facing the business today and why?
A:
“MidUSA exists to make a positive difference in the lives of our membership. The economy is difficult right now, so our challenge is to help our membership through this difficult period of time.”
Q: What have been keys to the company’s success over its history?
A: "MidUSA focuses on doing what is in the memberships' best interest. We do this by taking care of our individual members one day at a time, one step at a time...As a result of our focus, we are one of the largest, locally-owned, full-service financial providers in all of Southwest Ohio."
For example, he said they still review each member’s loan application personally and make lending decisions locally.
Q: What do you feel your company does better than its competitors?
A: "We do what is in our members' best financial interest. We don't push products and services. Our member service surveys continually tell us that our members prefer to do business with us over other financial institutions they may have accounts with."
Q: Where do you see the company in five years?
A: "We will continue to offer our membership the best financial product and customer service in the market.
Things are changing so quickly. If we would have talked five years ago, I wouldn’t have known what text or mobile banking was.”
Q: How is the company committed to the community?
A: "We support the communities we serve with commitment of time, money and resources...
Probably our signature event in Butler County is MidFirst Ohio Challenge (Hot Air Balloon Festival).” It will be the MidUSA Ohio Challenge this year, for which its committed to another corporate donation and employee volunteers.
Q: What is something the company wishes it could do better?
A: "Getting non-members of the credit union to experience the MidUSA Credit Union difference...Of the member groups we survey, one of the things we hear more often than not is 'I never tried a credit union.' It's hard I think because members have a lot of messages related to financial services."
Q: What’s the biggest lesson the company learned from the recent recession and how is it being applied?
A: "We did not get involved in any of the high-risk activities that other financial services institutions got involved in. We manage the credit union with a long-term, conservative perspective and continue to focus on member centric solutions that are our guiding light...Our challenges have been helping our members through the recession."
Q: What has been the effect of the name change on the credit union so far?
A:
“Most of our members tell us they like our name better than before ... I think the color red, white and blue to start with, and I think how do you not like USA related to that.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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