Dennis Cutter Starting His Career As A Joke, Credit Union Executive Is Still Having A Good Time

Dennis Cutter says he never thought about credit unions as a job.

In 1965, he was a machinist for the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad working out of Vancouver, Wash., his hometown.

It was a job his railroading father got for him while he took courses at the local community college.

Then a conversation with an official at the railroad’s credit union while he was applying for a car loan landed him a weekend job running computer tapes to reconcile accounts.

Cutter, 55, says he applied for the job of running the Clark County Employees Credit Union in 1965 as a joke. He got the job.

“I ran it by myself,” he said.

The credit union had all of $200,000 in assets. Cutter says he was in the office from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. From 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. he was at the railroad shop.

“Then I spent the weekends at the credit union to figure out how to run it,” he says.

In 1967, Cutter moved to the Boise Cascade Credit Union in Vancouver as assistant manager. His railroading days were over - “I didn’t like getting dirty” - and the job he never thought about has since consumed his life.

After a stint as general manager of the U.S. Employees Credit Union in Vancouver, Cutter moved to Spokane in 1971 to take over the Spokane Railway Credit Union. He’s been there ever since.

When he arrived, SRCU had two tiny branches at Mission and Fiske and in Hillyard, where creation of the Burlington Northern Railroad was starting a long sunset for that neighborhood’s prime industry.

The credit union had $2.1 million in assets and 3,100 members. There were seven employees.

The railroad industry’s woes weren’t over. Continued cutbacks culminated with termination of Milwaukee Road operations in Spokane in the early 1980s.

Yet SRCU has thundered on like a freight train descending a steep grade.

At the end of the first quarter of 1996, the credit union had $208 million in assets and 36,000 members.

Employees number more than 100, and the two north side branches, which were consolidated at the Mission site shortly after Cutter arrived, have been joined by five others.

The newest, in Coeur d’Alene, opened in November.

SRCU trails only the Spokane Teachers Credit Union in size locally, and ranks about 15th in Washington, a state with among the highest rates of credit union membership.

“It’s just a major job to keep up,” Cutter said. “It’s more challenging and interesting today than it was 20 years ago.”

He said his participation in national and international credit union organizations has helped him keep pace.

He earned a Mark of Excellence Award from the Washington Credit Union League in 1994 and recognition as one of the 10 outstanding credit union chief executive officers by the publishers of Credit Union Times in 1992 for his efforts on behalf of what he calls “the movement.”

“Movement means there are more people involved,” he says.

There have been rough spots.

In response to the deteriorating fortunes of the railroad industry through the late 1970s, the SRCU board assessed its membership criteria, Cutter says.

The credit union expanded eligibility in 1983 to anyone who ships by rail or truck.

SRCU’s Washington franchise expanded further last year with the addition for charters to serve those who live or work on the South Hill, or in the Spokane Valley.

To open the Coeur d’Alene office, a new charter had to be granted by the Idaho Department of Finance.

Cutter says the credit union has applied for another franchise that will extend its coverage into the northwest area of the county.

Cutter routinely refers to credit unions as a movement rather than an industry because they operate as a cooperative.

Credit union numbers have diminished in the last few years, but the remaining institutions have more assets and greater equity than ever, Cutter says.

Despite that, he notes, credit unions have about $320 billion in assets, barely more than the increase last year by the nation’s banks.

Cutter says the technological changes transforming the financial services industry are a tremendous challenge. A 1994 membership survey indicated the demand for home banking and other computer-based services was low, but adds that SRCU will monitor the advances.

“You can bleed to death on the cutting edge,” he says.

Cutter says he has no plans to retire, but has been taking up some new leisure time activities.

He bought power tools with the proceeds from the sale of a boat, and has been making improvements on his 4-year-old home.

He also took up the piano.

“It’s something I’ve been saying I’ll do for 20 years,” he says. “It’s relaxing.”

And he and wife, Shelby, took up golf this year, a pursuit he says they could come to regret.

Not so with credit unions, the career he did not imagine 30 years ago.

“You feel like you’re helping people,” he says.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo