CUNA Personal Finance Institute
Instructors

Instructors

  Stuart Sears

Stuart is a member of a select group trained by both Daniel Goleman's Hay Group and Hunter University's Leadership Academy to bring emotional intelligence training to both youth developers and education leaders. As the former director of the Dispute Resolution Program at New York City's famed Midtown Community Court, Stuart gained recognition for pioneering programs designed to support group decision-making and problem-solving processes. During the mid 1990's, his work as a researcher on Dr. John Herarra's Neuro Research Team at New York's Mt. Sinai/Elmhurst hospital convinced him of the importance of bringing contemporary brain research to a wide audience.

During the "Creating New Behaviors that Last" session, Stuart will discuss the neurology of change (with little scientific jargon), how the brain re-wires itself in response to learning, and how meaningful behavior can be permanently embedded into the brain's emotional and thinking systems. Then, we'll explore how it relates to poor financial behavior and learning good money management.

  Bob Schumacher, CUDE

Bob is currently the CEO of MountainCrest Credit Union in Everett, WA. Bob's credit union career spans 31 years—several in award winning positions. He's worked with CUNA and both the Florida and Washington league service organizations. Bob was a principal partner in The Paragon Consulting Group where he specialized in providing strategic planning with more than 200 credit unions. He has worked with the World Council of Credit Unions on their CUES Philippines Project, twice providing training in the Philippines.

Bob served on many boards, including the Washington Credit Union League Foundation, National Credit Union Foundation, Northwest Corporate Federal Credit Union, and Snohomish County Junior Achievement. He received a CUNA Marketing Council Hall of Fame Award for lifetime credit union marketing achievement and recognition and the Washington Credit Union League Ambassador Award for his credit union work locally, state-wide, regionally and internationally.

  LeAnn Achtenberg, CUDE, DEUK

LeAnn Achtenberg's credit union career includes 10 years of experience at the local, state, and national levels. She is Assistant Vice President of Marketing for Anoka Hennepin Credit Union, a $110 million in asset credit union. She is a 2005 graduate of the Credit Union Development Education program (CUDE), is chair of the Minnesota Credit Union Foundation's Family Involvement Council, and serves on the advisory board for the Minnesota Credit Union Network's MYCUP (Minnesota Young Credit Union Professionals).

LeAnn started her career at the league level working on marketing and advertising for the North Dakota Credit Union League and then the Kansas Credit Union Association. As an advocate for youth involvement in credit unions, LeAnn was one of the first to involve credit unions in the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Finance.

On the national level, LeAnn volunteered her time for the National Youth Involvement Board from 1997 to 2004 in the capacities of Regional Coordinator, Secretary, Media Manager, and Chair. During her time as chair of NYIB, she spearheaded the creation of the Googolplex@school program, a unique financial literacy program for middle schools.

  Danielle Chatfield-Beres, CUDE

Danielle is currently the Community Affairs Director at MidState Educators Credit Union in Columbus, OH. After 13 years in the credit union industry, Danielle is currently working her dream job. Every day she gets to work with adults and students of all walks of life on financial education. In her spare time, she's dabbling with establishing her credit union's first blog, social networking space, and Twitter presence. She firmly believes in the power of credit unions to change peoples' financial lives and has historically worked quite a bit with Latino financial education and financial services.

During her tenure on the Filene Research Institute's i3 group, she was a frequent speaker on the topic of innovation in credit union services. She promotes that each credit union's mission should be to make banks irrelevant.

  Milly Cramer

Milly is a senior executive with more than 22 years experience in all facets of fiscal and operational management at credit unions of varying asset sizes. She began her career as a teller and progressed from the front line to the back office working in accounting, payroll, and operations. In 1997, Milly was tapped by Summit Hampton Roads FCU to serve as president and CEO. During her eight years in this role, she maintained an ROA in excess of 100% and doubled the credit union's asset size. Her extensive experience earned her a position with the Virginia Credit Union League in 2005, where she was instrumental in developing relationships with credit unions throughout the state.

In November of 2007, Milly joined $1.5B Northwest Federal Credit Union (NWFCU) in Herndon, VA, where she is in the process of developing an in-house "university" to develop core competencies, professional skills development and career pathing for NWFCU's 350+ employees.

Fluent in Spanish, Milly has conducted financial literacy training within the local Latino community in cooperation with the Northwest Federal Credit Union Foundation. She also currently serves as 2nd Vice Chair of the Northern Virginia Chapter of Credit Unions.

  Dr. Angela Lyons

Angela is an associate professor at the University of Illinois and is currently the director for the University of Illinois Center for Economic and Financial Education and the editor for The Journal of Consumer Education. Her research focuses on issues related to household economics and finance, with particular emphasis on financial education and program evaluation.

In 2004, Angela was identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office as one of twenty-three national leaders in financial education and was invited to participate in the U.S. Comptroller General's forum on Improving Financial Literacy: The Role of the Federal Government. In 2003, she presented testimony on the importance of financial literacy for young adults before the Subcommittee on Education and the Workforce for the U.S. House of Representatives. Most recently, she served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Justice, providing expertise on debtor education for U.S. bankruptcy filers.

She is widely published in leading research journals and has been invited to speak before numerous groups and organizations on how to successfully measure the impact of financial education.