Message from the CEO

January 17, 2012

Fellow Members,

First Castle Federal Credit Union has been proudly serving you now for over 77 years! We value the relationship we have with you and the communities we serve.  Our Credit Union was begun in 1934 by employees of the Corps of Engineers to assist one another in providing better value for their banking needs.  The credit union motto is “People helping People” and that is what we have strived to do since the very beginning.

2011 was a strong year for our Credit Union. We had a very strong year lending to you our members, and we provided a safe haven for your hard earned money.  We were there to finance your dream house, your automobile, tuition, vacations, and many other things. While many credit unions had negative growth in loans we grew our portfolio by over 20%.  We also helped you save for your nest eggs, holidays and rainy days. Our total assets grew almost 12% and our membership grew by almost 13%. While the economy went up and down sometimes seemingly without rhyme or reason, we made sure we were always there as we have been for so many years.

We have an excellent staff that works very hard to take care of all of our member needs, and to keep the Credit Union delivering the positive service we are known for. From our front office staff to our back office staff we are all working for the same thing…and that is a successful and strong credit union. We believe the positive results we had in 2011 show that we are achieving our goals.

We anticipate another very positive year in 2012. We are going to expand our services to the Slidell area with a new branch location early in 2012. This will allow us to serve more of the community of St. Tammany and is a very important step in fulfilling the community charter we received in 2007. We will also continue to serve our Corps of Engineers members as we have done since 1934.  Our three branches together with the 3000 shared branches located throughout the state and nation, and the ability to use a First Castle FCU debit card at any Capital One ATM gives our membership convenient and easy access to their accounts.

Once again, I would like to thank all of our members who continue to use and support the Credit Union. The more members we have using our products and services the better it will be for the members, and the Credit Union itself.  I would also like to thank the Credit Union staff for the hard work they have done during the year, and also the Board for its leadership.

Thank you all and I look forward to even more exciting things in 2012.

 

Kirk Arnold, CEO
First Castle FCU