Everybody's fighting demons that you don't know about. We're running a business. People are carrying burdens that you don't know about. Yeah, so just give 'em some grace.
The community belief part, face-to-face connection with your finance professional. Matters. If you're
feeling like, you know, I wouldn't mind doing something different.
Do something different. Take the leap. 'cause it's
usually
rewarding.
What do you think the biggest misconception about credit unions is?
From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get IN, the show, focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Today's episode of Get IN is brought to you by Cowpokes Work and Western, a trusted Indiana retailer known for quality clothing, boots and accessories that fit your American lifestyle.
As you plan for the holidays, it's a great moment to shop small and support the local businesses that make our communities strong. What sets Cowpokes apart is their approachable expertise. Their staff makes it easy to find the right fit. Whether it's your first pair of boots or a new jacket you'll reach for all winter long.
With season long holiday specials and gift cards that make excellent presents, Cowpokes remains the place we confidently send people year round. My guest today is John Huesing, the president and CEO of Elements Financial, the Indianapolis-based member-owned credit union that empowers more than 100,000 members.
Nationwide with smarter banking and stronger financial Futures. He's the former vice president and treasurer at IU Health. Had a stint at Eli Lilly, holds both a Bachelor's in Finance and an MBA from IU's Kelley School of Business. Today, he is driving economic growth and financial wellbeing all across Indiana and beyond.
I'm really excited to learn the genesis of Elements Financial, how this started with the partnership with a rather large institution that every listener is gonna know about. Learn about your story from Pike to Bloomington, a brief stand up in Chicago that we might dive into a little bit, and even going across the Atlantic to Switzerland.
I'm really excited for this one. John, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
I'm really excited to learn how a guy from the west side of Indianapolis ends up leading Elements Financial, but also how you ended up, I mean, just talking about a stint. In Switzerland, moving your family for three years.
We're gonna get into a lot of fun stuff today, but I think this story starts on the west side of Indianapolis at Pike High School. Go Red Devils.
That's right. Go Red Devils.
Okay. So, so was it always in your plan to be a finance guy, go down to IU Bloomington and, you know, get involved with that?
No. Um, I knew I was gonna go to college somewhere.
I needed to find that happy medium of, I didn't wanna go down the street because I needed to get out of the house, you know, grow a little bit, you know, uh, spread your wings. Um, but I needed to go someplace that I could afford, uh, 'cause I didn't have too many dimes to rub together. Um, so I picked IU. Um, it was affordable and relatively nearby.
Um, I also, at, at that time in my life, I cared a lot about. Um, bicycle racing. I raced at the Major Taylor Velodrome, and so I wanted to be able to come home for events.
Was Marian University a cycling powerhouse then?
It wasn't, I considered going to Marian because my coach at the Velodrome at the time was trying to get the program started at Marion, but it just, it hadn't, uh, gained any purchase because I think
today they're like the Alabama of cycling.
Right. They, they absolutely are.
Which is pretty cool.
They
absolutely are. Like right here in our backyard.
Yeah.
Right. What was the vibe? What was the, like, let's say the stereotype, what was the stereotype of Pike High School when you were coming through there?
So it was much, much smaller than it is now.
Yeah. So my graduating class was, I don't know, 260 or 270 people. So it was, so, it was pretty small. It wasn't out in the, in the, in the countryside. Right. Like it was when my parents were, were younger. Um, but the vibe was sort of small and mighty. We had a pretty decent basketball team, which was awesome because we're in Indiana,
like township schools and IPS schools like evolve and change over time and just like, I actually wanna bring someone on to like talk about the evolution of Indianapolis public schools and townships and stuff.
'cause it's so fascinating to me. Uh, especially like how big now. Oh yeah. Like the Pikes and the North Centrals
and Absolutely.
All those township schools are. It's wild. Absolutely. So you end up going was little 500 what it is today, what people think about it today. Absolutely. As you were going through there.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So is this like, okay, like you're a cycling fan?
Well, I didn't, I did not go to IU in order to ride little 500 in, in fact, I was sort of. A, a, a cycling snob about it. Right. I thought, okay, little 500, that's just, that's an intermural event, you know, whatever. But I did it four years. It was awesome.
It was a great experience, you know, you know, met a lot of people. It was, it was, it was really great.
Was cycling a big deal? Like just in general?
No. Oh, no. No. Mean it's, how did you get
into cycling?
Before I had my driver's license, I needed a way to just, just to get out and, and go, you know, see the, see the countryside, so to mm-hmm.
So to speak. And so I started riding my bike and, and I liked it. I was good. I joined like a, a club and they had organized rides and I just, I just took to it. It was, it was great.
That's awesome. Yeah. I think that's super fun. And like, I feel like when you're, you know, 14, 15 years old, like your bicycle, this is like your first, it's like freedom.
Yeah, absolutely.
You
know, and, and if you're a, if you're a sports person, like I am, I'm, I love almost every sport. Mm-hmm. I mean, I played. Baseball until they started throwing curve balls. I played football until I wasn't big enough to actually play. And so the great thing about cycling is they kind of take all shapes and sizes and, you know, it's just
Yeah,
easy.
You just gotta have
like relentless, like relentless motors just like churn. That's right. That's right. It's wild.
That's right.
Uh, what did your parents do?
So, um, my dad worked at, uh, formerly INB Indiana National Bank. So he was kind of an operations guy at INB is part of JPMorgan Chase now.
Mm-hmm. So it was, you know, sort of subsumed in, in that, uh, consolidation. My mother worked at American United Life Insurance, uh, which is now part of OneAmerica. Oh, so they were, so they were both business people? Yeah. Uh, in downtown Indianapolis.
Okay. So you end up going down to IU. Did you know what you wanted to study when you got down there?
No. Um, I think I was of officially just a, you know, I don't know, uh, major when I, when I rolled in there. Yeah. I, I, I migrated towards business, not because I. Had any necessarily desire or acumen for it. But that's what I knew. 'cause both my parents, you know, went to an office every day and, and worked. And so I headed in the direction of the business school
Yeah.
And started taking more and more business classes. And, you know, candidly, I just did better in finance than marketing. And so I sort of stuck with it and, and, and here we are. And here we are.
Was Kelly as revered as it is today? Then
when I was an undergrad, it, it wasn't called Kelly, it was just the IU School of Business, but it was very revered.
I mean, it was a great, it has been a great undergraduate school of business for years and years. Yeah. Um, and then over time the graduate program, you know, was elevated. I, I, I guess in stature. Um, they renamed it Kelley School of Business and it continued to grow. So yeah, it was, it was always. Strong. Very strong.
And so you ended up doing your undergrad down in Bloomington, and then you got your, you ended up later on getting your MBA from the evening program
That's right. For
Kelly,
right? Yeah. So yeah, I graduated, uh, from Bloomington undergrad. I moved to Chicago, like you said I was, it's okay. I left the state for, it's
okay.
We understand you came back though. That's what
matters. That's right. I went to the big city for, I was up there for about seven years and then I came back to work for, uh, uncle Eli's Medicine show, as I like to say. Um, and once I came back to work for Eli Lilly, then I said, okay, now it's time for me to get my MBA.
And I went to, I
What, what did you miss the most about Indiana while you were in Chicago?
It's easy to live in Indiana. I probably didn't realize it all that much as a young adult. I really realize it now. But Indianapolis, um, is an, is an easy place to, to live, work, and play. And there are a lot of. Cities, Chicago being one, New York being another.
They make it really easy to work. They don't make it all that easy to live and raise a family and yeah. Do other things.
Getting groceries.
Oh, yeah.
In a place like Chicago. Oh,
yeah.
Like, I mean, there's lots of fun to be had. Like there's a lot of, there's an energy and a vibrance in work and all the stuff like
That's right.
Sometimes it gets, like, I'm not the biggest Chicago fan, mostly because whenever I visit my bookends are always terrible. Traffic's horrible. Parking's tough. Yes. Like getting in there, you're kind of like already a little grumpy. Yes. And then you're leaving usually after like a long weekend where I've had a few beverages, so I'm like moving a little slow already.
Traffic's bad Sunday morning, I'm trying to get home and I Oh yeah. And by the way, I'm gonna lose an hour.
Yeah,
yeah. Like sick.
I mean, you're, you're in, in stopped traffic on a freeway at midnight in, in some of those cities. Yeah. And it's, and it's a little crazy.
Yeah. Uh,
I guess another thing that I missed was, I mean, not, I don't want this all to be about cycling, but you can't ride your bike in the city of Chicago.
Right. There's just, you know, traffic, it's dangerous, right?
Yeah.
So there's not, there's not the way to, to get out and ride your bike and exercise. It
all comes back to cycling
it. Most
things do. I mean, before we were, before we were recording, we talked about, uh, the fastest man in the world, like reading the book from Major Taylor.
Yeah, yeah. About Major Taylor. It's an incredible read. I would, again, I think I've suggested it one other time on the show, but I would definitely suggest go and read that it, the level of stardom that Major Taylor, uh, rose to in the early 19 hundreds. Incredible
internationally.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Like, and, and I don't quite think that, uh, people understand the crazy, but they would race bicycles for seven days.
That's right in a row.
Yeah.
Like you would sleep, I guess, or what? Like it's crazy.
Yeah.
Um, insanity. So we could talk cycling all day long. So you end up coming home to work for. Uncle Eli's medicine show. So you're probably, what, 20 like late twenties at
that point? Late late twenties. Yeah,
late twenties.
And you get like, what I would say is one of the coveted positions in India, like Indianapolis proper. Like if you work in finance at Eli Lilly as a, in your twenties, you're in pretty good shape. And like, you're gonna probably have maybe a pool at your house someday. Like you're gonna have a pretty, like a comfortable life for, you know,
yeah.
For foreseeable future. Lilly's a fabulous company, um, that does, does a lot of good in the world.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and is, and is a great place to work. And working for Lilly is what brought me back to Indianapolis. There was some lifestyle things that, that makes India a better place to live than Chicago. I was a child of the seventies and the early eighties, and there was less going on in Indianapolis in the seventies and the eighties.
So part of what I was seeking in Chicago is, you know, activity and, you know, restaurants and sports and, and, and all that kind of thing. And you get that there, but you also get a lot of, um, life hassle. Right. It's like I said, it's, it's a little bit harder to, to live up there. Um, but what's, what's a really good reason to come back to Indianapolis work for Eli Lilly.
When people around the world think of Indianapolis, you definitely think of St. Elmo Steak House and Eli Lilly. Right?
That's right.
Those two go hand in hand. That's
right.
Yeah. So you come back, how long do you end up working at Lilly because you end up becoming the assistant treasurer,
right? Right. So I was there a total of 17 years, um, which is a long time.
So 17 years. All of that was here in Indianapolis except for the three years I was abroad.
Yeah. Which I do wanna talk about. So you're working at Lilly for 17 years. W after how many years did it take for them to give you this opportunity to do something pretty crazy?
10 years in.
Okay. 10 years in. So you're a decade into, so this would be late thirties then.
Yeah.
A decade into your career. That's
right. Working for uncle, uncle Eli's medicine company.
I love that. Um, and this opportunity to do something really crazy comes what, and in your family life, like what was the size of your family at this opportunity?
Yeah, so married, two kids. And when, before we went over to Switzerland, my kids were eight and 10.
Eight and 10.
So young. Yeah.
Well that's, I was thinking maybe it was like, you know, pre, like before school.
Yeah.
Okay. So take me to the opportunity where someone comes to you and said, is this like a, you were voluntold or is this like a, like what's the scenario where someone says, Hey. You could go to Switzerland.
Oh boy, that's, that's a good, I was not voluntold, I was interested in, in going overseas. And this comes from a guy who almost never been west of the Mississippi, you know, it's, it's just like I'm not a, a well traveled person. Again, cycling had a little bit to do with it because European cycling is, is way more developed than us cycling.
So I paid attention to the Tour de France. Everybody's heard about the Tour de France. Right. And so I pay attention to Europe. At the time, Lilly was trying to get some of its, you know, young up and coming people to, to take roles outside of the, of the states because that does two things, right? It, it develops them.
They, they move away from the mothership. And, you know, learn to do things on their own. And it also brings some of the Indianapolis, um, strength, culture, and vibe to, you know, various parts of the earth. So, so Lilly was starting to, to talk about it. Um, my first opportunity that didn't end up working out was, was to go to Athens, Greece.
Uh, we, it did, it fell apart and we didn't go. And, you know, and that's okay. I was disappointed at the time, but glad when I ultimately got, got to go to Switzerland. Um, and then the, the opportunity for Switzerland came up and, and a, and an interesting connection there is the, the trading company that I, that I ran in Geneva, Switzerland, was set up kind of for tax and treasury purposes generally, and I was already in the Treasury department, so there was, there was some connection there.
When you say like treasury, like for those that aren't finance people, what does that mean?
So for a small company treasury, um, if you, if you think about. Finance and accounting is keeping track of stuff, right? Mm-hmm. Treasury is all about cash and paying bills and collecting cash. So it's, so it's sort of the, the, the lifeblood of the company, the ins and outs of, of, of cash flow in dollars.
When you get to a larger company, though, it, it gets a lot bigger because you start, obviously the numbers get bigger.
Mm-hmm.
But, you know, you borrow money, you invest money. If you're Eli Lilly, you've got sales in other countries that are denominated in different currencies. So you've got foreign exchange to worry about.
That's wild.
So, yeah.
Like how much yen you have versus how many US dollars have Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's wild.
That's absolutely right.
Yeah. Sometimes I like to work on our treasury here at getting Indiana, just like, you know, when you're sending out the invoices
Yeah, yeah.
Instead to build up our treasury a little bit there.
That's
right. That's right. That's
okay. So you end up, you end up taking. You, it's your family. My family.
That's right.
You all move over.
That's
right. To Switzerland.
That's right.
For three years.
That's right. Yeah.
Holy smoke.
It was great. It
was great. Was was there a moment though, like, you're on this plane with one, how do you hear stuff there?
Uh, that's a huge complicated problem. You, you pack, you pack up at, well you look at your house. Yeah. And basically you divide it into, into thirds. Right. One third of the stuff that you're just gonna get rid of. One third of the stuff that you're not gonna take, but you're gonna store until you get back.
And then one third of the stuff you're gonna take with you and, and you divide that final third into what we call the air shipment and the sea shipment. And you, and you send the really essential stuffs. Stuff in the air shipment, which is a small amount, and then you wait for months and months for the sea shipment to arrive.
So if you've seen those pictures of like the, the, the big ocean liner boats with the, looks like semi-trucks, you know, stacked up on top of each other, that's the sea shipment. So you're waiting to get your stuff Yeah. On the slow boat.
And then like by the time, by the time it got there, you were like ready to pack it up and like go back home.
Exactly. Yeah. Pretty. There you go. That checks out
pretty much.
What do you think, so you were in your late thirties. Yep. You pick up your entire family with an eight and a 10-year-old and your wife. And you moved to Switzerland for three
years. That's right.
What do you think the biggest lesson you learned whether about, you know, finance and business and leadership and culture, or just about yourself during that time period Was
I was a middle-aged white guy from Indiana.
Right. I've never been in the minority, I've never been a stranger in a strange land. Right. And so just the, the experience of being deposited in a different environment. The language is different. Um, you need to learn how they do things there, how they, how they live, work, play, worship, all of those things.
They're, they're different. I tried really hard, uh, not to come across as, you know, the ugly American, you know, give me my Coca-Cola. That was a, a good mind opening learning experience. The, other thing, if, if you take your family with you, it's, it's harder on the trailing spouse. We went there, I went to work every day.
I was the boss. People spoke English to me. Right? I mean, if I needed something done, people helped me. Right. It was, it was not easy, but it was easier, you know? Yeah. My wife is at home. You know, going to the grocery store, which are different than they are here. Right. She has to go the,
I think they just call it the grocery, right?
Well, well, they go to the, she has to go to the butcher, then the baker, then the candlestick maker. You know, they're all smaller little bitty things.
Wait, they only sell chocolate and cheese, right?
Only chocolate and cheese. Only chocolate. But yeah,
I mean, sign me up. I'm kind of in,
it's, it's, it was, well, Switzerland was the most beautiful country in
the world.
When you guys look back on that, when you and your wife look back and talk about that experience, like how do you guys look like, oh, that was really hard and terrible. We're really glad we did that. Like, I wish we didn't do that. Like
all of us, my wife and I, and the kids, we all are super, super thrilled that we did it because we all appreciate the, the opening of the mind.
I mean, my kids used to think Indianapolis was the edge of the earth, and now they have friends all over the globe. Right. Because they met people, you know, in Geneva. Yeah. And it was very hard at the beginning, but at the end we didn't wanna come back. I, I, I mean, we would, I mean this is our home. Of course we were gonna come back.
Yeah. It would've been nice to stay a little longer.
And I think you go from like working in, like I would say Lilly is one of, you know, when you think about coming back to Indianapolis, like Oh yeah, working at Lilly is a lot of people's dream. Right. Working in like the finance in Switzerland, you know, like, oh yeah.
That's kind of like a pinnacle thing too. Being a finance guy in Switzerland, it's pretty cool. You end up coming back and I think then, okay, so if my timetable is correct here, 10 years in, you go to Switzerland for three years, you come back. Yep. You do four more years. That's right. So this will put you in your early forties.
That's right.
At Lilly.
That's right.
I'm sure. Like, there's this theme of like, okay, you took this one risk and you kinda go overseas and, you know, spend some time there. You come back, you do four more years, and the risk bug starts to itch you a little bit again.
Well, it was a bit of a, I was the assistant treasurer and it was a great job.
I wanted to be a treasurer. I wanted to do more, I might've eventually become the treasurer of Eli Lilly, but it wasn't in the cards, in the, in the near term. And so I started looking around and, and I thought, you know, I, I would like to take another risk. I would like to try to lead, uh, an organization as opposed to being a, a reasonably important cog in the machine.
I wanted to, I wanted to lead the machine. Yeah. And, and so, um, you know, through some connections, I was inter, um, interviewed at IU Health. You know, left, left what I thought was healthcare and the pharmaceutical side to what really is healthcare in the hospital side. Yeah. Um, so that was, that was an interesting transition as well.
I wanna talk about a little bit of leaving Eli Lilly. I think that is a really challenging thing to do. Like, I have friends who have gone through the MBA program there and you know, they get back and you get a nice salary increase. Get some stock options. Yeah. You buy a house that's kind of big up in Carmel and you're like, and it becomes really hard.
Yeah. Like really, really, and you're just like, you know, and on paper there's nothing wrong with it. Like, you're doing good stuff, you're working at. One of the biggest, if not the biggest company in Indiana, right? You're, you know, making good money on paper, all things good, but sometimes like you get the itch or sometimes, or you like fantasize of like what life could have been like if I would've done.
When you look back and think about making that transition, what, what did you weigh that finally got you to say, Hey, I'm ready to go and do something different.
I was just ready to take a chance on myself, you know, again, IGII guess, I mean, li Lilly's a great company and I had a great job and I had a great network of, of people there, and I enjoyed what I was doing.
Um, and, uh, I'm sort of arguing against myself a little bit here. Lilly does a great job of moving people around to different roles in, in the organization. So there's a lot of, uh, diversity of roles. Um, but I was in particular looking to run a treasury department and I wanted to run a treasury department for a.
Large organization that had mm-hmm. Debt that they needed to borrow and investments that they needed to make. And, and IU Health was a, was a great opportunity.
And so how long do you end up staying at IU Health
for? Uh, just over 10 years.
Okay. So during that timeframe is where you first got on the Board of Elements Financial?
I,
I was actually, I was on the board in the, after I got back from Switzerland, while I was at Eli Lilly. As an employer. As an employee,
yeah.
Uh, I was on the board. Then when I went to IU Health, I stepped off for a short period, but then, then I came back.
Okay. So this is an important thing that I think all the listeners need to know about is we need to talk about the beginning of Elements Financial, because it's so ingrained, like, like literally so connected to Eli Lilly.
Absolutely.
So this is, take me back to 1930, I believe.
That's right. So the origin story of Elements Financial, um, was, uh, a company, I mean ultimately called Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union. Mm-hmm. It started back in 1930. And it started, like many credit unions started where employees or groups of people felt like they weren't getting a great deal when they interacted with banks.
And, uh, they felt like they were, you know, if they, if they needed to borrow money for a house, they, they had a loan shark down the, down the street that would lend them money, but that, that wasn't fair or safe or for a good idea. And so employees of various companies get together and say, let's just pool our money and like, take care of each other.
Um, it, it's, it's not unlike the, um, the way Blue Cross and Blue Shield, you know, insurance started, it was like people said, let's, let's come together. Let's form a group, um, a cooperative, and we will, uh, take care of each other. And that, and that's how the credit union started in 1930. So in the, in the depths of the, of the depression.
People needed help. Eli Lilly was a, was a solid company, not like it is today, but you know, much, much, much smaller, but still a good company. People came together and said, let's, let's take care of each other. Uh, and they, they formed a, a cooperative inside Eli Lilly. It ultimately blossomed into a credit union, uh, ultimately got reasonably large and then many years later turned into elements.
I wanna dive into like, starting this thing. So like, this one person come together and like kinda lead the charge as like the organizer and say like, Hey, you give me a hundred bucks and you gimme a hundred bucks and you gimme a hundred bucks, and then we'll take loan applications to see who gets 500 bucks.
Yeah,
it seems a little risky.
I, yeah, I don't know. 'cause I, I, I wasn't there. I haven't lived through that, but, but I imagine the beginning is something pretty, pretty similar to that. Do you? It's like, let's, we're all in this together. Yeah. Let's take care of each other.
And if we talked about the evolution of financial products, like what kind of things.
Were offered and, and this is like a very historical question, so feel free to say you don't know the answer, but like 1930, let's say you, I mean, Lilly probably had, I don't know, over a thousand employees or whatever back then. Yeah, yeah. You get 500 bucks from everybody or whatever. So you're, you're sitting on a decent little chunk of money there.
Yep. And you're like loaning out for mortgages or
for, well, not, not like a proper mortgage, like, like you think of as today, but mm-hmm. Small loans to, uh, maybe, maybe for Christmas or a small loan to make an improvement to your house or maybe a down payment or, or something like that.
I think that's an interesting thread to pull on of like, you originally, like originally Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union
mm-hmm.
Starts to take care of each other.
Yes.
Like, I don't think, uh, when I go and bank, like historically that I think about putting my money in a bank is taking care of people. Right. I think that it's like, it's, for me, I want. My half of 1% or
whatever. So, so there's two things, right? It's, it's for you, for, for sure.
And it's also for the shareholders of that bank, right? Because the mi the mission of the bank, the bank exists to, um, provide a product to you, which is your mortgage, right? Mm-hmm. But they wanna make money mm-hmm. At, at that, right? So, um, and that's all well, well and good. You get what you need. You have to pay for it.
You pay an interest rate. Right. And that provides income to the owners of the bank, which are the shareholders of the bank. Right?
So, okay. So I could be, if I wanted to partake in both sides of that from a bank, I would need to own PNC stock. Yes. And I would need to use PNC products. That's right. So they would be taking my interest and then That's right.
Maybe give it back to me in shareholder value over here.
That's exactly right.
But with a credit union, it's different.
Well, it's, it's different because the. We don't use the word owner, we use the word member. Mm-hmm. Right. But the member and the depositor borrower are the same people. Right. So you gave the example of if you wanted to play both sides of that, you could.
Right. But in many cases, they're different people. There are folks that own PNC stock to your example, that don't bank with PNC, they bank with somebody else or, or whatever. Um, but in the credit union world, if you are a depo, if you are a member, which is analogous to an owner, right? Mm-hmm. That means you are also a depositor and borrower.
Yeah. So it's one in the same. And the beauty of that is theoretically at least it, it lowers the profit requirement, which is why, um, credit unions are not-for-profit. Doesn't mean we don't make a profit because we do, you need to make a profit in order to live. Um, but you don't need as much of one, because if you're a.
Bank owner, what you really want is the stock price to go up and you really want dividends to be paid. Right. If you are a borrower at a bank, you want to pay as little as possible. Right. Or you want to earn as much as possible on your deposits. Well, that's con contrary to what the owners of the bank mm-hmm.
Necessarily want because they wanna, they wanna pay you less or charge you
more. Yeah. Let's say like, who's in the stock market? You know, like people in the stock, if you're buying the ownership side of it mm-hmm. Then it's like, well, someone who needs money is going out and financing. Right? That's
right.
So it's like not everyone who would be opening a credit card or doing whatever there is the same person that owns stock. That's
exactly right.
So like, it does get to be interesting there of who, who's on each side of the coin there. That's right. Versus, okay, we're talking, these are Eli Lilly, uh, employees that come together.
Do they have to, do they end up paying like a membership fee
or, I don't know if there was a, I don't know if there was a fee or, or, or not. Okay. But, but the, but the thought is they pool their money.
Mm-hmm.
And then let's say Joe comes in and says, Hey, I want to, I want to borrow from the kitty mm-hmm. To, you know, buy a house or, or whatever.
The group then says, okay, um, you know, we'll, we'll lend you the money because we believe in you and we think you're gonna pay us back and we're gonna charge you a little bit of interest because we've gotta keep this machine machine running. Right. A portion of it is Joe's money because Joe is a, is a member.
Mm-hmm. And we're gonna charge Joe less than we otherwise would because. Joe's part of the family and it's, you know, people helping people.
And it remains that way for over 70 years, I believe 1930
we're, we're at 90, 95.
Well, it remains only Eli Lilly.
Oh, that's right.
Correct.
That's
right. So for over 70 years, this is a, an exclusive club.
If you don't work an exclusive club for Uncle Eli's medicine show
That's
right. You can't get into the club.
That's exactly right.
And that's like a lot of things. There were tons of different, like pick your organization, credit union, you know, like it's exclusive.
That's right.
What ended up being the reason that this opens up where anyone can figure out, uh, their way into being a member,
being as closely intertwined with Eli Lilly is both a blessing and, and a challenge.
Right. It's, it's a blessing because. Eli Lilly is an awesome company and there's a lot of, you know, strong, um, depositors there.
Yes, there was definitely from the treasurer. Say there was treasure
ab, there was, it's definitely treasure, right? Um, but there's a little bit of a thought about investing in the stock market, right?
You probably shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket and invest all of your money in one particular stock. Now, if you, in retrospect, if you did that with Eli Lilly or Apple or something, you'd be pretty good. But in general, diversification is a smart move. Mm-hmm. Because of the whole eggs in one basket kind of thing.
Yeah. It's, it's not that much different from a credit union perspective. If Eli Lilly was, I don't know, purchased by Pfizer, like, which was something that we worried about, you know. 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Yeah. Right. Um, that would not bode well for Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union. Yeah. Because Pfizer already has a credit union and Eli Lilly disappears, right?
Yeah. And so it's a diversification play
really. And it's interesting of, if you think of, um, cycles where if times were tough, let's say stock price goes down and everyone's like looking for a loan for Christmas, that's a lot of people coming
That's
right. From just one area to say, Hey, we need money for Christmas gifts.
That's right.
Versus if you have this diversification right. Then like, you know, I'm thinking of like big Indiana company. Well, I'd say if IU help us up, but are you
sure Cummins or Roche or, or a lot of those others.
Yeah. And you like expand your community a little bit there.
Absolutely.
So in, is it early two thousands, I believe?
That's right.
Uh, it ends up opening, Eli Lilly Credit Union opens up for more than just Eli Lilly. Right.
It was, I think it was 2008. So like Right, right middle, middle. SI guess that is,
that seems like a marketing headache to be like, we're Eli Lilly Credit Union?
Yeah. Oh yeah.
But you can, everyone can we, we welcome everyone.
Yeah. It and we, we did a, we did a, a bridge strategy, honestly. We, we were Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union for we for an interim period. So those initials are ELFCU. So we had an interim period, we were actually called L-Q-ELFCU. And then, and then, and then we moved all the way to elements. And it was a, it was a well thought out marketing strategy.
And if you look closely, there's still connections between elements and, and Lilly
like, what?
Uh, the red is the same color. EL Elements, you know, Eli Lilly, you know, there's the, um, what is an element, you know, it's part of the natural sciences and, you know, there's biochemistry and all of that connection with, with Eli Lilly.
So there's some, there's some connections there.
When did the Elements brand get launched?
Elements was 2015, I believe.
And when did you join the team at Elements?
Um, as, as CEOI joined two years ago.
Two years,
okay. Almost, almost two years.
Are there still people that are like, I still remember when it was Lilly
Oh, yeah oh yeah. We, we've got a number of people that have, have been around for 25, 27 years, so long time ago. Yeah.
When you think about the benefits of a credit union versus a traditional bank, if you were just like making that, um, simple for the average listener who might not have a finance degree or their MBA, how would you explain, uh, what the perks of.
A bank and the perks of a credit union are
banks have an easier, um, time if they want to get big. And, and part of that is because it's much easier to buy a competitor. It's also easier to, you know, issue stock and, and borrow money in the, in the, in the bond market if you wanna grow. So it's much easier.
You, you have more, this is a finance term, but you have easier access to capital, right. In order to, to expand. It's much harder, uh, to do it in the credit union space. Um, because our, we don't have stock, right. I can't, I can't issue more shares of elements to get some money to go buy another credit union.
That's, that's not, not really how it works. So, so growth is easier on the banking side. It's, it's more challenging. On the, on the credit union side, the benefit of, of the credit union space is, first of all, there's the. There's, in my opinion, there's, there's the improved sort of feel goods of this is this is an organization that helps people.
This is not an organization that is only in it to make more money for shareholders. So it, so it feels good. And because it, they tend to be smaller. There are a couple of larger credit unions, but they tend to be smaller. They're also a lot more community focused, um, which a lot of people value. And if you get right down to the sort of the brass tacks of the, of the financing, um, you tend to get.
Better rates on your deposits and your loans, because the profit incentive is less at a credit union.
I've never thought about it in a way of your local dollar, like you'll, 'cause from a commercial banking side, it's like, let's say, I don't know, there's a development going up somewhere and Elements is you guys finance.
We do. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. So depositors could also be helping fund
Oh yeah.
The growth of our community.
That's right. You're driving down the road. Yeah. And you see a sign that says, you know, it's,
is there like a project that you guys have been a part of that? I don't know if you're allowed to say that.
Yeah, we've, we've, there's a number of products around central Indiana, ho hotels and, and um, uh, residential home developments. We're, we're doing a lot of 'em.
Yeah. That's pretty cool to think about, uh, where, or even like a family, let's say some, a family is building their first home somewhere, and like the fact that you.
Bank or that you, do you call it bank? What do you, what do you say
that's, that's hard, but I mean, yeah. You could say bank. Yeah,
yeah. Or do
business with,
or you do bus. Ah, yes. The fact that you do business with elements Yeah. Could mean that like, yeah, someone gets their first time home, uh, you know, you're financing their home build or their home buy.
Like, that's absolutely,
I mean, it's, it's a much more local feel. It's kind of like, like farm to table, right? I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm happy to, to eat beef that, you know, grew up in Indiana, right? I mean, it's just, it's closer. It's more local.
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Right. They're just like, okay, I download the app and I put my money in and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it's just a platform.
That's right.
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that's so fantastic.
And there are definitely segments of the population that, you know, don't care about that. They, they want the, you know, the best rate whatever they want, that they want the they app that's seamless. They don't, they don't care. Right. And that's okay. That's, that that works. There's also a, a large segment that.
Okay. I'm about to buy a house. This is the biggest investment of my life. You know, I want to go into a branch and talk to someone. Yeah. 'cause this is a big deal. Or I trust Wall Street. I, I, you know, I'm okay investing in stocks, but you know what, my, my rainy day fund, I want it to be in a savings account that I can, like go talk to somebody about.
Yeah. And so there's, there's a customer service.
Yeah.
Touch, touch and feel.
Talk to me about that from like a business owner perspective of why having a business relationship with. Let's say elements or a credit union where you can go in and talk to the person you're doing business with on a finance side, why that matters.
It is a huge reduction in friction to to be, if you have a problem and you can go into a branch, which, which branches have, they've sort of migrated from being transaction centers. You know, 30 years ago people went into branches to cash checks and to get money orders and do that kind of thing. They've migrated away from that and now they're problem resolution centers, right?
So if you're a, if you're a business owner and you've got an issue, if you've got a, a sticky situation that you need to explain or you've got a problem, it's, it's great to be able to walk in and talk to a banker and say, here's, here's the situation. Um, as opposed to, you know, getting in the queue on the phone and trying to get somebody to help you and.
Now banks, banks do that too. Banks have branches and they, and they provide all that services. Well, you're in
Switzerland. He's Switzerland when it comes to it, right? Yeah. Uh, no, I, and I appreciate that because you're not just coming here saying like, the end all be all is credit unions, you know?
That's
right.
That's right. Um, but as someone who like does have, you know, business, uh, accounts with elements, it's really interesting as I think about the growth of our business to, I think that sometimes like the big bigger institutions, like, if you don't hit this requirement or this thing, like if it's a numbers thing, only if you go to, like, borrow money or if you go like, you're just number 1,264,702.
That's,
absolutely true. And, and w we, we try to think about the, the things that we do, we do for the benefit of the member.
Yeah.
Of, of course we wanna make money because we have to live to fight another day. Right. The, the, the phrase that I use is no margin, no mission. Right? We can't serve the member.
We can't, which is our mission. Right. If we don't make enough margin to, you know, to to live right. But the, the product that we want to sell, uh, to the member needs to be something that they need. It needs to not be, oh my gosh, I, I need to make my numbers this month. I need to get, you know, so many mortgages done or, or whatever.
It's, it's like, does the member in front of me need, uh, a home equity loan or, or not? And if the answer is no, we're not gonna talk about home equity loans. You know, do, do, do they need an auto loan or not? You know, it's, it's, it's not a numbers game. It's more of a. Um, service game and meeting the members where they are and delivering to them the products that they need.
What do you think the biggest misconception about credit unions is?
Exclusivity. That club part that you were talking about before. Right. It's like, okay, I'm not a member there, so I, I guess I, I can't do business there. And, and we, we need people to take the next step. Can I be a member of the club?
Yeah. What does
that 'cause we make it pretty easy. Yeah, I was gonna
say, what does that take?
You have to be a depositor to be a member, so you have to open an account and put money on account. It's pretty easy,
pretty similar to like being a bug.
It's, it's, it's, it's pretty easy. Yeah.
Okay.
It's pretty easy.
So that, it's not like you have to do something special or like,
there, there is some process involved of, we call it memberizing which means turn them into a member. So there's some, there's some technical things that we need to do on the backside. Um, but it's, but it's not difficult.
Can you, once, let's say you open a, I dunno, a high yield savings account
Yep.
Might be what someone in this room did a little bit ago. I don't know. Thank, thank you for your business. Right. Uh, so then can anyone come and get like a, let's say if it was an auto loan, is it for members, like the products there for members,
right. You have to be a member in order to get a loan.
Okay. But you could walk in and you could say, Hey, I'm brand new. This is day one. I need a, I wanna borrow money to buy a car. The answer is, okay. Okay. Well let's, let's memberize you first. Yeah. Let's, let's get,
get, and it's like, what if it, it was like, is there a a minimum to be a member?
It's only $5.
Five bucks.
Yeah.
So you could have a, you could become a member with $5.
You could,
and you could, you know, come in and say, okay, I'm now a member of elements and I'm looking to find a good product for a car or a house,
or whatever. That's right. And of course the hope is that you're not just there for the auto loan and then you leave.
Right? Yeah. The hope is that you're gonna. Enjoy the experience and you're gonna,
yeah.
You know, a couple months later, a couple years later, you're gonna say, okay, I'm gonna open up a high yield savings account now because I've got a little bit of savings I'd like to do something with. Or now it's time to buy, buy a house.
And man, that car experience was awesome, so I'm gonna talk to them about a mortgage.
I think it's interesting for business owners especially to think about not just being a number.
Yeah.
The community belief part. I think that it's real from my outside perspective. Granted, I've never gone to a bank and said, Hey, could I have $250,000 to open my restaurant?
But like, I do think that having a face-to-face connection with your finance professional matters from your side does is, is that, or is that just like an old wives tale?
No, that's true. It's true. It's absolutely true. And it's, it's much more true, in my opinion, on the small to medium sized business.
Okay.
Than the ultra large. Businesses, right? So like, so when I was at Eli Lilly, I, I didn't, I didn't bank with Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union. Right? You
mean do business with
there? It's, I see what you did there. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Really nice. Yeah. So I didn't do business with them from the treasury perspective.
I, I dealt with, you know, the JPMorgans, the Goldman Sachses, the, the, the big folks of the world. And, and it was just, it was easier as a large company to do business with a large financial institution. If you're a, um, sole proprietor, if you're a small business owner, if, if you're trying to grow your business, if, if you're on the, on the smaller side, it's, I think it's very important to have that.
Yeah. Touch,
let, let's say this, there's a food truck owner out there, you know, they're doing, I don't know, 75 to a hundred KA year. You know, pretty good margins, all that stuff. I think a lot of small business owners think. There's no chance I could ever, you know, get a loan to turn my food truck into a brick and mortar place.
Yeah. Like, it just doesn't seem real. And like maybe they're, they're experts at whatever their food of choice is. They're not experts in finance. Right. And like, doing that, like while you're also working nights, weekends, growing your business seems really complicated and hard.
It is. Yeah. Very.
Yeah. It correct.
But like, when you think about the factors that go into, you know, getting a small business loan or something like that, what do you all look at from, um, from your perspective?
So fundamentally, um, if we're gonna lend money, this is gonna sound, you know, cold and heartless, but we need to be paid back. Right.
And so,
and not just you, the the members.
Absolutely. Like
as, hey, as a, as a member, that's, I hope that you get paid back.
That's right. And, and, and
as a borrower, I hope to pay you back
that. See, that's, that's the, that's the way it works. You gotta remember that, that, um, the, the, the member that you're dealing with that needs to borrow money, um, if it's, if it's too risky, right?
If, if, if the likelihood of, of that particular member paying us back is low, we should not make that loan because that's gonna negatively impact all the rest of the members. Right. And so it's not a charity where we would provide money that we don't think we're ever gonna see again. So for small business owners, you, you look at their business, you try to understand their business, you may be more willing to take a chance on them if they're in the community, but it needs to be a sound business decision.
Yeah. You have to, you have to believe that you're gonna get. The, you're gonna get paid for it and you're gonna get your money back. Otherwise you are
Yeah.
Socializing the, the, the, the loss across all the rest of the members, which is, which is not cool. So smaller banks and credit unions, I think tend to lean into a little bit riskier businesses, a little bit more local businesses.
But you still have to do a, a,
yeah.
Credit analysis. It's gotta
be a smart business starts and all that stuff. It starts, it starts with, if it's a, if all things considered, like this business makes more money than it loses, you know, like they're running a profitable business. But like, I think that times you can run a profitable business Again, let's go back to the food truck analogy.
Yeah.
Let's say making a hundred KA year profits of 40, 50 grand. Okay. Let's say 50. Just make it even so 50 grand a year. But to get a restaurant build out, you know, that's gonna take you five years to get a quarter of a million dollars saved up. And that's like in, that's, that's assuming you're not spending any of your 50 grand on like That's right.
I dunno. Eating yourself or I guess, you know, like, I don't know. You have to buy new equipment so it could take a long, long time to save up whatever it is to take the next step in your restaurant journey.
That's right.
And when you see that, what are the other factors? So let's say the table stakes is, it's a solid business that makes money.
What else goes into the decisions for small business owners out there of whether or not you guys would, would lend to them to help their restaurant dreams come to life?
Yeah, so we talked about diversification.
Yeah.
Earlier, right? Um, we would, honestly, we would look at our loan book. And if we had nothing but food trucks trying to turn themselves into restaurants, we might not do the next one.
Mm-hmm.
Right? Because then we're putting all of our eggs in that individual industry basket, right? Mm-hmm. And so, um, we, we would look at the individual credit worthiness of the bank. We would, or, or the, um, uh, the business. The business. We would look at our existing loan book to see is there, is there room in our, in our book?
Then we'd look at the industry that the business is in, and do we believe that it's viable over the long term, and are we willing to park our money with that business for five years or seven years in order for them to generate the returns to come back?
That's, I never knew it was, I thought it was literally like ebitda.
Profits loss, blah, blah, blah, blah. Alright. Looks good or looks bad.
We, we do a, a fair bit of hospitality, so hotels Yeah. In our, in our commercial book. Um, there will come a point, we have a lot of hospitality in our book and if we add the next hotel deal, we've probably got too much. Yeah. And that doesn't mean we didn't like that marginal deal, that very next deal.
Mm-hmm. That just means, you know what, we need to do some food truck business. Yeah. Or we need to do, you know, some, some other, you know, commercial business. Yeah. To, and, and again, it's diversification.
That's really interesting to think about and like the fact that there's a human back there looking at Nate Span's media company and saying, you know what, we don't have any, we can need to diversify into some media company a little bit here.
That's interesting risk. I wanna go back into risk. Obviously you talk about diversifying the risk of credit union, diversifying the risk of your portfolio, but you personally. Seem to continue to lean into risk.
Well,
well, you, you know, 10 years at IU Health. At Correct. IU Health, that's
right.
Yep. And then you get the opportunity to come over to Elements.
That's right.
We were talking about this a little bit before recording, about taking risk or leaps or different challenges later in your career. Uh, I mean, how old were you when you decided to come over and join the Elements team? Let's
see, 57,
whether it was at Lilly or whether it was at IU Health, you could have kind of just chilled.
Yeah. So the thing there, I, I think it's interesting, right? Yeah. So hopefully the listeners will too. Um, I, I had a great job at IU Health. Um, I liked my job. I liked the people I worked with. My boss was awesome. I was getting tired of working and I'm like, you know what? I am thinking I need to retire pretty soon.
Right. I didn't know what that meant. Was I gonna retire and stop doing anything? Not really sure, but I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna retire. So I told my, I told my boss that I was gonna retire in like a year and a half, so gave her plenty, plenty of notice. Um, and then, um, the opportunity kind of fell out of the sky with elements.
I was, I was on the board. We had a, um, A CEO that left unexpectedly. Um, and all of a sudden the board was like, yikes, what do we do? We need to, we need a leader. Um, and so the chair of the board came over to me and basically said, Hey, Johnny, like
then you were voluntold.
I was kind of voluntold, right? And, and initially I was like, no, no, no, no, not, I'm not gonna, not gonna do it, right?
'cause I'm retiring in a year and a half, right? I'm, I'm ready to, I'm ready to stop this. And, and he's, he's a really smart guy. And he, and he said, how about you come over as the interim CEO, right? You know, make sure everything's working fine, help us, uh, identify a successor. But it buys us some time to do this smartly.
Right. And, come on John, you're gonna retire in a year anyway. Why don't you just do something fun for the last year of your career? And he was very convincing. And so, and I was on the board, so I already knew elements. I knew a lot of the executives. Yeah. Uh, you know, I had affection for the organization 'cause I've been with it for a long time.
So I thought, what, what the heck? Like yeah. And so it was a, a little bit of a risk, right. But I was planning on retiring in a year anyway. And boy, that would be kind of cool to, you know, be the CEO of a, of an awesome organization for, you know, spend the last year of my career doing that. Right. So I agreed to do it.
So I came over as the interim CEO. In like January of 23. Yeah, it's, it's longer than a year. You're giving me the look.
Wait, I might, I might not be a treasurer or an accountant, but it doesn't seem like that's a year.
Yeah. Yeah. So a couple months in, uh, I mean, it was just a wonderful confluence of events.
I mean, I, I was like, this is, I actually kind of fun. And the board was pleased with how things were going. And, um, so then we started talking about, okay, maybe you could stick around for a, a little longer. Yeah. And then so, uh, they, they sucked me in. So I'm gonna,
what advice would you have for people that might be later in their career that have been doing something similar for a long time?
That might be looking for that like reinvigoration and look into uh, you know, like find that spark.
It's really simple. It's just be, be brave and, and try it.
Because the easy thing to do is just say, you know what? This is not my monkey's, not my circus. Somebody else's issue.
That's right. Like we were saying before we started, inertia is a powerful force.
Yeah. It is super easy to keep going in the direction that you're going and you need to be smart about it. If you've got a family to take care of, you know, you can't be reckless, right? Yeah. But if you're later in your career, you're reasonably established. Um, if you're feeling like, you know, I wouldn't mind doing something different.
Do something different. It's, yeah, just, just take, take the leap. 'cause it's usually rewarding and if it's not rewarding, it's probably fixable.
Was it a big transition to go from finance to people? Like, I feel like CEO is a lot of people problems versus For
sure.
Finance is a lot of numbers. Problems
for sure.
It, it's been a little bit of a mix, right. When I was in Switzerland, I did more than numbers. I was, I was a general manager, basically of, of that organization. So I had some people problems in Switzerland too. Mm-hmm. So I had a taste of it, right. I'm focused on the numbers and now all of a sudden I'm, I care about the entire business, you know, not, not just the investments or, or whatever.
The other big change for me was, I guess two other big changes. One, um, I had only worked at large organizations. My Chicago time, I was at big companies. Eli Lilly is enormous. Um, IU Health is really, really big, right? So all of a sudden I move into a smaller organization where, you know, every single employee, right?
I, I've never had that before. So that was, that was a big change. Um, and then the other one, that was a change for me. I was very familiar with. Elements. 'cause I was on the board for a number of years, but there's a huge difference between being a board member and being a member of management. There's a, there's a big difference between governance, which is what boards do, and actually running the business, which is obviously what the executives do.
That was a big
change. Let's talk about that. I feel like governance is fun. Like it's easy or easier, I would say different maybe because it's, you know, you can pontificate on ideas and say like, yeah, someone should really work on member increasing the amount of members that we have. And that's right. You should do a crazy marketing campaign and then you leave the board meeting and then, and whoever's in management then says, why the heck do we do
that?
That, that, that is a good way to look at it. And sometimes we feel that way. Right? We've got a great board. Um, they're, they're not sending us off on, on fool's errands. Right? If, if you have a. Um, a good board that's properly structured. You know, they understand that their role is not to torment management with, with, you know, errands to run, but they are looking out for, in, in, in our case, the members, right?
So they are representing, you know, a hundred thousand members of this organization and they are making sure they are, they are governing our behaviors to make sure that we're putting the member first and doing and doing the right thing for them. So if you've got a responsible board, they're, they're not just gonna create stuff.
Yeah. Right. It, you're, there is an element of, Hey, why don't you go try this? If, if they're a, if they're a, a good board with a good relationship with management, management can say, oh, okay, I'll do that, but. We need to think about this other thing, or there's, there's some, that's not the easiest thing in the world to do and let's, and let's debate it.
So
I think typically the journey goes from management to governance. You go from like being the, if you're like founder, CEO, board member, you know, versus going from board member to CEO.
I think that's right.
Do you think that it gives you an advantage to come from the board perspective into management?
Most, most of the times when somebody goes from the board to management, it's when there's, you know, a troubled situation. Like somebody needs to parachute in and save the day. And that wasn't the situation for us. I mean, we had an issue because we had an open CEO position. So, yeah. So it's definitely not, not normal.
Um, but because I had been on the board, uh, for, you know, a decade or so, yeah, um, I think I had a, I think I had the advantage over a. Uh, a CEO coming in from the outside.
What was the biggest lesson you learned going from big companies to going to a smaller organization?
As the leader of the small organization, I, I learned pretty quickly that, you know, words matter and what you say matter.
And of course that's true, you know, in, in all walks of life. But, but it's, it's a little dangerous as the CEO of a small company to say, huh, I wonder like, why, why do, why do we do it that way? Should, did we ever consider doing it this other way? Right. Just a question, just I'm trying to learn, you know, let me explain, understand that if you're not careful, your team is gonna say, oh my gosh, John just told me that we need to do it this new way and let's go implement this, this thing.
And so they run off and, and, and maybe do something that is not a smart thing to do, but I was just asking a, why, why do we do that? Let's, let's help understand that. So it, so it was really learning the. The, the power of your voice and suggestions. Yeah.
Well then on the, on the other side, it's like stuff moves fast at smaller organizations, you can go from like point A to point B pretty quickly.
It's
way less bureau bureaucratic.
Yeah, for sure. Which is like, I've, I, my company's that I've worked at or been a part of, I've gotten significantly smaller. Like my first one is. 75 people and I was like, oh my gosh, two layers of people have to like talk about this. I was like, and then it went to one layer of, people have to time, now it's just like, I'll think of something in the morning and
they're like, that's
right.
Hey, what if we did this? And
it's like, alright, let's do, and then by the end of the day it's like, okay, we did
that.
Well what do we think? Yeah. Large companies have more resources. Small companies are more nimble. Yeah. And, and they're, it's stark and their differences. Yeah.
One thing I wanna talk about, uh, we've obviously, obviously talked about like the feel good impact of, you know, you go and make a, a deposit in your local community and then you know, a hotel That's right.
Or someone's food truck could turn into. A restaurant.
That's right.
I feel like every company says we are committed to the community. You know, like we're, we do good in the community. Everyone has their, whether it's their volunteer day or their this or that. You guys have a really interesting commitment to Central Indiana.
Absolutely.
Uh, can you talk a little bit about what you're doing to give back to the community?
Yeah. So as you know, by rule or by by decision really, I mean we, we give to the community 1% of our profits every year. So, um, we, and we do it in an interesting way. I think we, we call it, uh, we call it pitch fest, right?
So we are a not-for-profit. We talk to other not-for-profits that are doing good work in the, in the community. We give them an opportunity to come in and say, Hey, here's what we do, and we're really excited about it and they're hoping they can get us excited about it, and we can give them a grant, which is a portion of the profits that we set, set aside for that.
And we did that every year.
How long have you guys been doing that?
Five to 10 years. I,
that's been a while. And so like how many, like last year, for instance. Uh, how many different organizations and like, what, what was the impact that Pitch Fest made?
Yeah. I would say, I mean, fi probably five or six entities, you know, get dollars and they get dollars anywhere from, you know, just a couple thousand dollars to many thousands of dollars.
Yeah. And, and the impact for the individual organizations, um, are different. And it mm-hmm. The, the thing that I like about it is it's, it's based on what they need. It's like, it's like, Hey, you know, we need a new delivery truck for, for whatever. Yeah. Or we're trying to expand in this sort of area and it resonates with us.
It's, it's a little bit of a competition to decide who's gonna, who's gonna get allocated. And then, and then we do
like your pillars, right? Like elements has pillars in which the community, you know Yeah. Like you guys get behind and support.
Absolutely. Yeah.
The pillars of giving are homelessness and housing.
Right. Youth development and healthy lifestyles. That's
right.
I think that's really interesting. Um, one of the ways you guys made this commitment. Is, uh, by partnering with us, we do the nonprofit spotlight.
Right?
A big piece of when people ask like, what's the hardest part about running the Get IN podcast is there are so many.
Amazing stories of people who are doing great things in our community that need to be told. Like, we get lots and lots and lots of emails every single week about this nonprofit and that number. And like we could put out 15 episodes a week about nonprofits that are doing great work in our community. And when you guys came alongside us and said, Hey, we're gonna help tell those stories.
And so I think over the, the course of this year, we're doing 12 different episodes, all about nonprofits and we teamed up with you guys and kind of, um, shared a little bit of these homelessness and housing, youth development and healthy lifestyles. So the fir, I mean, one of the. Greatest ones. We've had, uh, we had Wheeler Mission on to talk about homelessness in central Indiana.
And if anyone hasn't listened to that episode, it blew my mind. Like, uh, we've put out 200 and something episodes so far, and if I think back about episodes that just reframed the way I thought about things. It's that one. Um, I saw homelessness and housing as a structure problem. Like we need more structures like, like, like physical spaces to sleep.
And after hearing this story, there's just so many more complexities that go into someone's journey to. To homelessness. Yeah. Um, sometimes it is like a tragic, like a fire or something that creates a need that needs to be filled, like with a physical space. But a lot of times it's like these lifestyle choices or, you know, mental health and all of these different destructive decisions maybe at times that have happened in this person's life.
So, uh,
it, it can also be, yeah, a lack of a support system, right? I mean, I, I think about like, if as I'm driving to work, if I have a flat tire, right? I, I pull over, I call my boss, I say, Hey, I'm gonna be in late today. You know, somebody comes and picks me up. I've got a support network. I've got the means to fix that tire.
Yeah. And it's a, it's a pain for me. Your AAA
membership, you
know, that's exactly right. Right. So, so it's a hassle. It, it turns into a story that I tell over cocktails, you know, that evening, right? The other, the other individual's driving to work in his car and he has a flat tire, right? And he calls his boss and says, Hey, I'm gonna be in late today.
And the boss says like, no, you're not like, you're, you're working on the assembly line. You need to be here. If you're not here, you know you're gonna lose your job. And he's not there. And he loses his job and then all of a sudden he can't make his next payment. And all of a sudden his, you know, he, he gets into that unfortunate spiral.
Not, not because he is a bad dude, not because he's not working hard, not because he's, he's not, you know, thinking about things. But he just didn't have the support system that, you know, somebody like me does. Right. And all of a sudden he's, he, he needs a place like Wheeler Mission to, to give him a place to stay for a little while.
And it's because he had a flat tire.
Yeah. Well we had Brian in, Brian is, uh, I believe the director of marketing at Wheeler Mission.
Okay.
He showed up there, like needing help. Like he showed up there. He had, he was an alcoholic and had made so many destructive decisions in his life. And he said his journey and a lot of people is like.
You know, you, if something like that happens, then let's say you can't make your payment, there's someone to take you in, you know? Yeah. Like mom, dad, aunt, uncle, friend. Like you have a couch to sleep on. That's right. And he said he had burned so many bridges time and time again that finally everyone, every relationship in his life had said like, no, you've, you've fooled me once.
Shame on you, fooled me twice. Like all Yeah. He's like, this has fooled me 15 times. Yeah. And his parents finally said like, you have to get help. And they dropped him off and he said he was calling, like on the drive home, he calls him and says like, what the heck? This is a homeless shelter. Like this was supposed
to be rehab.
He dropped me off at a homeless show, like,
come get me. And they're like, no. And he said, that moment changed his life.
Wow.
And it's, it's a while. I will encourage anyone to go listen to that, but it's awesome to see you guys, your commitment to helping in that space. And I think that, that sometimes people think that that's just a structure thing.
Like, oh, putting in. A structure to end homelessness. Right. And it's, it's just so much deeper than that. So for sure, I encourage people to go listen to our nonprofit Spotlight episodes over the next year. Uh, and we are really grateful for the partnership with Elements to make that happen.
Happy to be partners.
We've come to the end of the show where we talk all things Indiana.
Okay. Awesome.
Are, are we excited about this? Absolutely. This question is brought to you. My friends at J.C. Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences in apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com.
My question for you, John, from Chicago, back to Indy, over to Switzerland, back to Indy. Why do you call Indiana home?
Fundamentally, it's, it's where I'm from, right? I, I didn't, I didn't ask to be born here, but I was right. And you, and you, you lay down roots. You, you, you, you bloom where you're planted, I guess.
Mm-hmm. So it's, it's definitely home for me. My family's here. Um, my wife's family's here. My, my wife by the way, high school sweetheart. Also a, a Pike High School. Uh, you know, go Red Devils. Yes. So we, so we've got roots in the community. It's hard to go away. Um, but it's, it's just been home, um, for a long, a long, long time.
Okay. What team did you ride for a team when you were in Little 500 at IU?
I, I was in Acacia Fraternity, and so I was on a. Fraternities. Do
they still have a team?
I'm not sure they're on campus today, actually.
Okay. Well this is a hypothetical, hypothetical thought exercise I want to go through. Okay. Okay.
Would you rather an Acacia Little 500 victory or an IU football national championship? You have to pick one
IU Football National Championship.
Bang. Too easy. Yeah. And this is from a cycling
aficionado? Yeah. I've been a long suffering IU football fan. Right. And it's, it'll be really great if we can actually turn it on.
Okay. Would you rather attend an IU national championship or the, uh, tour de France?
I have attended the Tour de France, so I'll say IU again.
Wow. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. Elements was named a best place to work in Indiana. What's one perk that the entire company loves?
When I ask people what they like about the company, they always say the people.
We, we, I mean, we're a small organization. We have less than 200 people. Um, we've got the, you know, Hoosier hospitality, Hoosier, nice kind of, kind of vibe, kind of vibe going. Um, everybody there has, has drank the Kool-Aid. They believe in the credit union mission, the people helping people, and so they really, really enjoy the people that they work with.
I think that's a constant thing in Indiana. People just, people do big things.
Yeah.
People make the place too.
Yeah.
Longtime finance guy,
correct.
Like, have seen a lot of dollars, yen, whatever your term for dero is, you know a lot about it. What is the smartest financial decision you've ever made?
Start saving early pay.
Pay yourself first, you know, contribute to your 401k. Put your, put your money away. This is a finance joke, I guess, but the joke I tell is that, you know, the two strongest forces in the universe, one is inertia. We've already talked about that, but compound interest is the other one. You know, start, start saving money at your first job.
Because it, you know, time is your friend.
Yeah. And I think a lot of people think it has to be a ton too.
No, does not. Yeah.
Even like $5 a paycheck. That's, that's right. It can over time. Like I don't wanna know, I don't have my compound interest calculator out, but it can end up making a big impact for sure.
It absolutely does.
Okay. What's something you wish you would've done different from a finance perspective when you were, you know, in your early twenties,
graduated, moved to Chicago? I bought a car because that's what you do right? When you, you gotta,
well, not in Chicago, but,
well, I, that's what, that's why it was a mistake.
I didn't, I didn't know that my, my now wife then girlfriend, lived in Ohio. I needed a vehicle to get there. Right. But. That that expensive car sat in a, in a parking lot in Chicago covered in snow. You know, it was just a bad financial decision really. Well, we won't dive
into the fact that, but traveling to see your future wife a great, well, that was important.
Well, couldn't have taken
the bus
or, or rented a car, you know, mean, good lord. So yeah, that was a bad decision.
Yeah. All right. There we go. Not the visiting the wife part. That part was good. Yeah. Um,
thanks. Thanks for the safe.
What has been the biggest lesson in people management that you've learned over the past couple years as CEO of develops
everybody's fighting demons that you don't know about?
Yeah.
Right. I mean, you want, you want people to work hard. Uh, you wanna give grace, you know, we're in a business, we want, we're running a business. You need to, you need to work hard. They, as, as my older brother told me years ago, it's, it's called work. It's not called recess John. Right. You know, but people are carrying burdens that, that you don't know about.
Yeah. So give, give 'em some grace.
Favorite Indiana University tradition.
Candy, Stripe basketball, pants, pants.
I mean, it's
awesome.
Yeah. Was it, was it more fun to, was it more fun to ride in Little 500? Or like, would you, if you could go back in all things equal, you've seen what your friends say, would you rather ride or be a spectator of little 500
Oh, they're both awesome. It's the, it's the,
like, it's always so interesting to me that it's like, I mean, how many people ride in it?
33 teams of four people though.
Okay, so a hundred hundred
20 something.
120 something a year.
Yep.
That's, we don't do public math. Even if we're math people. We don't do public math on the pod.
So a hundred, like 120 people-ish a year. Like. Versus the thousands thousand, thousands. It gets this like, yeah. For some people it's like, this is a big deal.
Oh yeah.
You know, like,
yeah. I would, you know, I would probably say ride as opposed to watch, because riding in the race is a culmination of months and months and months of working hard and working together as a team and achieving common goals.
Yeah. And all that. So it's, so it's kind of the ultimate, it, it's the, it's the pinnacle of all the effort that you've put in for the last, you know, eight to 12 months. Whereas if you're spectating, it's super exciting. Right. But it's just a weekend.
You think about the sacrifices that some of those teams make, it's like Thursday night, the whole rest of the fraternity's going out to drink beer
That's right.
You're on the trainer just ripping miles. that's true. I did a, um, I did a full Ironman a few years ago.
Oh,
awesome. Which one? Which one did you do? I did, uh, the The Woodlands. So just outside of Houston, Texas.
Okay,
awesome. Um, and this was like, um. I dunno. We had the idea for a good Christmas break, so we signed up for one in April, so it was four months and training in Indiana.
I love Indiana. Everyone knows that training for a bike ride training to cycle in Indiana during January, February, March.
That's hard
challenge. So I was on the trainer every Friday night for like a four hour ride on a trainer
is terrible.
The part that makes it terrible isn't necessarily that you're just like pedaling there is that you have to have so much discipline because being done is right there.
That's right.
Like if you bike 50 miles away, like you're kind of screwed 'cause you gotta bike 50 miles back. That's right. But like I'm at mile whatever and being done. The bathroom, the fridge, whatever is right there. The couch. I literally like, I have a bachelor pad, so I literally just like separated my sectional couch and put my bike right in the center of the living room.
So it was just me like pedaling away.
Yeah.
And uh, it was brutal. My fifth outdoor ride ever was Ironman, Texas.
Wow.
Like I had ridden, oh my gosh. I had ridden outside five times total. Oh
my gosh.
And like, I think we did like a, a 10 mile, a 15 mile, a 20 mile, a hundred mile, and then 112 for Ironman, Texas.
Wow. It was crazy. Uh, so I've not been on the bike since. I'm not a fan of cycling, just 'cause I have such bad memories of like another evening on the bike. Um, amazing. We've come to the final part of the show where I ask the same three questions to every guest that comes home.
Okay.
So first question, you went to Switzerland and people ask where you're from.
You say, Indiana and blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. What's something the world needs to know about Indiana?
It's a great place where you can have a well-rounded life. It's easy, it's easy to work. The cost of living is low, so you can afford to do stuff. We have four seasons, you know, it's, it's the, the weather is honestly great because you have all four, all four seasons.
Mm-hmm. It's easy to live, work, and play. In Indianapolis.
Yeah. I think we've had people too from other place, like they maybe grew up in Florida, grew up in California, wherever, and they're like, I actually like the Four Seasons.
Yeah.
Like,
yeah.
I feel like if it was always so nice out or whatever, like you wouldn't get the same appreciation you do as like, like I love the first snow.
I don't love the 50th snow, but I love the first snow.
Yeah.
Just like I love the first day of summer. The first day of spring, first day. Yep. You just have something to look forward to.
That's right.
I like that one. This is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of Indiana that more people need to be talking about.
What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
Hoosier National Forest is awesome. It's huge. It's, it's enormous. Uh, I mean, I first was exposed to it, you know, ride my bike through it in southern Indiana, right. But fall, the hills, the leaves, it's, it's a beautiful place. And they've got lots of awesome gravel roads. I, I ride my gravel bike in Hoosier National Forest.
There's trails to hike on. It's, it's a, it's a beautiful place to, you can camp. I'm, I'm not a hunter, but you can hunt there. Um, you can camp, hike, ride a bike. Beautiful. It's a great place.
Tons of recreation.
Absolutely.
I love that. Okay, this is the final question where we get to learn about someone in our state who's making an impact.
This is where we get guest recommendations. Who's a Hoosier? We need to keep on our radar, someone who's doing big things.
So I'm on the board of a not-for-profit called Firefly Children and Family Alliance. It used to be called Children's Bureau. They, they provide a lot of care for people less fortunate than you and I.
Yeah. Um, but it's, it's all about strengthening families and, and they, they deal with child abuse prevention. They help with the foster system. Um, they help, um, provide. Low income workers with, with, you know, CCDF vouchers for childcare and all that. So they really facilitate family oriented things. And the, and the CEO of Firefly is a woman named, uh, Tina Cloer, C-L-O-E-R.
She's, she's awesome. I, I believe, I hope I don't get this wrong, but I, I believe she went through the foster program as a child, right? So now she, she lived the experience of what was then the Children's Bureau, and now she came back and she's running the organization. So she's president and CEO and the, and I would say the great, she's a wonderful, wonderful person, but she also has that mix of, there are a lot of.
Leaders of not-for-profits out there that are doing great work, but they're less awesome at running a business.
Yeah.
And Tina does both of 'em really, really well. She's got empathy and she cares deeply, but she knows how to run a business too. That's awesome. So she's top shelf.
Yeah. We're gonna need to to get her on the show and talk about that especially Yeah.
Lead like learning about the story. And I do think a lot of times just because they're not-for-profit doesn't mean they shouldn't make money. Right. Or like, you know, find a way to make 'cause that means you make a bigger impact.
That's exactly right. You like, and, and, and you, you're sustainable, right? Yeah.
You don't make any money, you're gonna go away. Right? Yeah. So you have to live to fight another day.
Yeah. I always love hearing about the organizations that find a way to, uh, not solely rely on like the grants or whatever it is, but like, oh no, like people buy this thing from us. Um, yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's really interesting.
We had Jeffrey Mittman.
Okay.
He is the CEO of Bosma Industries. Oh,
sure, sure. Yeah.
Crazy story. Absolutely crazy. But he talks about that like we are a company, they're a nonprofit.
Right.
But they're a company with a mi, like they're a company that has a mission, is how he says it, like the, they do Salesforce consulting and they do warehousing shipping, all like they sell.
Products. Right. And it just so happened like they employ, you know, half their staff is visually impaired. Sure. And I was just like, oh my gosh. Like this is a business guy. Like he's here making an impact. And then like on the other side, they have all these services they offer for the Hoosiers that are vis visually impaired.
That's right.
Like, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
John, thank you so much for coming on, sharing a little bit about your background from the West Side Pike High School, down to Bloomington, over to Switzerland, back to Indiana. A brief stint in Chicago, but also learning about the foundation of elements that started back in 1930 as Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union.
Why Federal, why credit unions were important. I think that's an interesting piece of perspective. And the value, uh, uh, that all of us can have, whether you're on the commercial side, looking for a, a finance partner looking for someone to do business with. Right. That's true. Um, to, uh, like what that can mean for a depositor, keeping their money in your community and the impact that can make, whether it's financing new hotels or taking someone's food truck and helping turn that into a brick and mortar restaurant.
Absolutely.
I think that's so cool. And learning that there are people back behind the screens like. You know, pulling the levers and seeing all, and you're not just a number.
That's
right. I think that's really cool. That's why I'm really excited that we're partnered up with y'all. Uh, I'm really excited for, you know, the nonprofit spotlight that we're doing and just the way y'all are making an impact in central Indiana serving members all across, not only the state, but the world.
That's right. Um, I think it's awesome and it was great to get to hang out for a little bit. Great. I appreciate
it very
much. Yeah. Keep up the good work and we'll talk soon. All right, sounds great.
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