Wifcu.com
Title
Willow Island Federal Credit Union
Description
About Willow Island Federal Credit Union
Willow Island Federal Credit Union was chartered on March 4, 1953. The chartering members were Raymond E Leach, Earl D Ellis, R C Lantz, Alfred T Hall, John H Cramer, D Ernest Wilcox, & R K Britton. The credit union was organized due to the need for employees to be able to obtain loans at a reasonable rate. At the time the credit union was chartered the American Cyanamid Company plant at Willow Island was still being built and this made local banks reluctant to make loans to the employees. The original field of membership for the credit union was Employees of American Cyanamid Company who work in Marietta, Ohio, and Willow Island, West Virginia; employees of this credit union; members of their immediate families; and organization of such persons.
The name of the credit union was shortened to Cyanamid Federal Credit Union on July 3, 1967. Then on March 4 ,1994 the credit union once again changed it's name to Willow Island Federal Credit Union. This name change was due to American Cyanamid Company Willow Island Plant splitting into two companies: American Cyanamid Company and Cytec Industries Inc. The name was changed to the place where the credit union office is located. The Board of Directors felt a name change was necessary since we went from being a one company credit union into a two company credit union and didn't want the membership to feel that the credit union would favor one group over the other.
In 1995 it was recommended by NCUA (National Credit Union Administration) to the Board of Directors that we try to get other employee groups that did not have credit union services available to them to join our credit union. Over 57 % of our shares were owned by members who were 55 years old and older and 35 % of that being owned by members who were 65 years old and older. NCUA stated that with our membership getting older and the sponsoring two companies having very little new employee growth, we would more than likely start to see a decline in membership growth and see the loss of our shares due to the death of our membership. Since the credit union had seen the number of members remain the same and the amount of shares remain the same for several years the Board of Directors decided to try to get new groups into our credit union. The first group was added October 18, 1995, they were the Employees and Officials of the City of St Marys. Since then we have added six additional groups.
