Mark Harnishfeger Consumer Credit Counseling Director Helps People Live Within Means

Credit counseling is not exactly Mark Harnishfeger’s calling.

But it’s a pretty good echo.

Consumer Credit Counseling of Spokane was voted last year the best office with a staff of fewer than 15 by members of the National Foundation for Consumer Credit Counseling.

Harnishfeger, the director, was elected to the foundation’s executive committee, the first representative from a small office in 40 years.

The former theology student said the designation comes as the consumer credit counseling industry undergoes a major overhaul.

More competitors are entering the marketplace, he said. To accommodate the newcomers while protecting the public, the foundation is drafting education standards and other service benchmarks.

An accreditation requirement is among the objectives, Harnishfeger said, adding “We want to bring more quality and standardization to the industry.”

One clue to the current confusion is as handy as the telephone book, where a listing for “Consumer Credit Counseling by Credit Counseling Centers of America” can be found in bold type above that for Harnishfeger’s agency.

Credit Counseling Centers is based in Dallas. Harnishfeger said that group handles only the simplest, most lucrative cases entirely by telephone, then refers the rest to local offices like Consumer Credit Counseling of Spokane.

Although a recent court ruling denies the Dallas operation further use of the Consumer Credit Counseling name, Harnishfeger said competition is forcing his agency and others to turn to new sources of funding.

Harnishfeger readily acknowledged the irony in his role. The Indianapolis native has an associate degree in theology from The Way Biblical Research Center in Emporia, Kan., not the business degree preferred for his position.

He did take courses in business administration at Indiana University and architecture at Purdue University, but the pursuit was casual.

“I was a Sixties child,” Harnishfeger said. “I didn’t have a lot of direction.”

Eventually, the Indianapolis native moved on to Chicago, where he was a customer sales representative for Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co.

There, at age 29, he got involved with Christianity and The Way, which took him to Kansas. The Way, he said, emphasizes a practical, everyday approach to Bible study.

He arrived in Spokane in 1982 to continue his studies with a reverend in the center.

His future wife, Mary Ann, was also a member of the fellowship. Today, they rotate non-denominational fellowship meetings in their home with other couples who have “churchshopped” and come away unsatisfied.

Harnishfeger said he fell into the consumer counseling job through a roommate, who was a client at the year-old organization.

He started as the secretary in November 1983, when there was just a director and counselor besides himself. Much of the counseling was done by volunteers, a practice that continues today even though the staff has grown to 13 full- and part-time workers.

Harnishfeger was named director in 1990. “It’s been a great growing ground for me,” he said.

Besides a main office on Division, the agency has satellite offices in Colville and Coeur d’Alene. One employee is positioned full time at Washington Water Power Co., which provides 10 percent of the agency’s funding.

The bulk of the money for Consumer Credit’s $370,000 budget comes from contributions made by client creditors, who are asked to remit 15 percent of the funds recovered by the agency. The average return is 9 percent, Harnishfeger said. Other funds come from client fees to a maximum $15 per month, and revenues from classes and investments.

Last year, Consumer Credit Counseling served more than 2,000 clients and recovered $2.4 million for creditors. About 775 clients are enrolled in a debt management program that distributes their monthly payments among creditors.

A glass bowl in the reception area is filled with the cut-up remains of credit cards clients abused on their way into debt.

“It’s sad that people have to buy things in order to find worth,” Harnishfeger said.

He said he believes the Bible suggests that people should live within their means, but conceded that even his family resorted to credit cards when they furnished their home in North Spokane.

Although no longer a counselor, Harnishfeger credits Consumer Credit Counseling’s growth to his religious study.

“I believe it has everything to do with the success of the place,” he said.