How Marine Credit Union turned employee investment into real member impact

The drive from most of Marine Credit Union's locations to Madison, Wisconsin, takes hours. Josh Lichty believes every minute was worth it.

In early June, Lichty, Marine’s director of financial education, took 39 of the LaCrosse, Wisconsin-based cooperative’s certified financial counselors and key staff members downstate for the credit union's first-ever financial counselor conference. The gathering, held at TruStage's facility with America's Credit Unions participating, wasn't a training event in the traditional sense. It was an investment in people who, in turn, invest in members every day.

Lichty said servant leadership, a focus of the Marine Credit Union organizational philosophy, is measured by whether the person who has been served has gone on to serve others.

"If our counselors can serve our members and our members feel what that's like," Lichty said, "they can become knowledgeable and empowered to do it in their communities. That's the true measure of success for servant leadership."

That ripple effect is the ultimate goal, and that belief sits at the foundation of everything Marine is building around financial counseling. The Madison conference was where it came to life.

Listening first, building second

Lichty came to Marine in 2025 after 24 years in education, most recently as a university professor. Before designing any programs, he spent his first three months on the road, visiting all 17 of Marine's Financial Empowerment Centers (branches) across Wisconsin and Iowa, sitting in on meetings and listening.

What he heard was consistent: Marine had more than 50 staff members holding the Certified Credit Union Financial Counselor (CCUFC) designation through America's Credit Unions' Financial Counseling Certification Program (FiCEP). But those counselors felt disconnected from each other and uncertain how to put their credentials to work.

"Being certified is different than being engaged," Lichty said.

His response was a three-tiered model drawn from his educational background:

• Tier 1 is community outreach: workshops at libraries, nonprofits, and Financial Empowerment Centers that introduce people to basic financial concepts.  

  Tier 2 is structured one-on-one counseling, where a counselor builds a relationship with a member and works through a personalized plan.  

  Tier 3 is the most intensive, reserved for members facing complex, long-term challenges that demand what Lichty called a “financial trauma-informed” approach.

Marine's Finding HOME program is one of the clearest illustrations of Tier 3 in action. Launched in 2018 through the Marine Credit Union Foundation, it's a 12-to-18-month financial counseling and coaching journey for members with significant barriers to homeownership. Participants who complete the program's requirements earn eligibility for a market-rate mortgage. In a housing market where many families feel permanently locked out, Lichty calls it the kind of work credit unions are uniquely positioned to do. The Foundation, which funds Marine’s financial education work, has directed more than $2.08 million to over 2,100 causes across 848 communities in its history.

Three C's in Madison

With the model in place, Lichty turned to the question of how to equip counselors to deliver it. The answer was the June conference, which was organized around what he called the three C's: connection, curriculum, and confidence.

Connection came first. Counselors spread across 17 locations and remote teams in collections and lending had never really met as a cohesive team of counselors. Monthly virtual meetings helped, but Lichty knew they weren't enough.  

"You can start to do it virtually once a month," he said, "but doing it in person, that was the magic."

Connection also meant connecting to their purpose at Marine Credit Union, truly understanding the needs of their communities and the responsibility of advancing lives to a place of ownership, and giving back.

Curriculum came through sessions on the future of FiCEP, including the forthcoming Financial Fundamentals course and a new Financial Trauma-Informed Specialist advanced certification.

One session changed the temperature of the room. The team learned about United for ALICE, the national research initiative that tracks Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed households: working families who earn above the federal poverty level but still struggle to afford basic living expenses. Nationally, roughly 42% of U.S. households (about 55 million families) fall below the ALICE Threshold.

Then it got personal. "We had so many individuals sitting in those seats that are ALICE, and as I shared, I too was not long ago," Lichty said. "It helped them personally to say, 'I could use some financial education and counseling myself.' And it gave them footing and confidence to move forward with better tools and resources."

Confidence, the third C, came through recognizing the process of counseling and coaching and the roles each person in the company plays in that journey for our members. Shared resources, experiences, teammates, and tools allowed them to understand the vision and how to apply this learning in their work immediately.  

"By modeling how we value them as employees," Lichty said, "I felt like one of the biggest takeaways from the individuals was: ‘I felt valued. … I've been at other institutions. They would never have done this for me.’" This is another form of confidence.  Lichty and his planning committee deliberately built moments and details into the event to let them know they are important and integral. Accommodations in Madison were covered. Meals and a social evening were included. A professional photographer was on-site, not just to document the conference, but to give every counselor a professional headshot.

Megan Crowson, solutions manager of financial well-being from America’s Credit Unions said, “The question that I hear a lot from those who get their certification is, What’s next? This was a perfect example of what is next! A conference like this allows fellow counselors and coaches the time to lean on one another, ask questions, role-play scenarios. It helps give them a confidence boost that their credit union believes in and supports them. This in turn will help them better help members.”

The investment multiplies

The Madison gathering accelerated Marine's counseling initiative in concrete ways. Multiple departments are now organizing cohort-based CCUFC certification, including a lending team whose leader asked her entire staff to pursue certification together, with a cohort launch planned for July. Leaders are becoming certified alongside frontline employees, Lichty said, following the servant leadership message of President and CEO Tom Knothe.

Marine plans to level up their CCUFC-certified staff through integrated Financial Fundamentals coursework and the Financial Trauma-Informed Specialist designation to meet the needs of all employees in their professional development.

For counselors who couldn't make it to Madison, Lichty is planning a series of pop-in visits around the credit union’s branches to bring the curriculum and energy of the conference to them directly.

A model worth replicating

Lichty's advice to credit union leaders considering something similar is straightforward: start with whatever capacity you have and build from there.

"If you can find a way to bring people together, even if it's not everybody, do it," he said.

The work at Marine points to a principle the broader credit union movement can apply: when you invest meaningfully in the people doing the counseling work, the return flows directly to members and communities.  

The three-stakeholder model (employees first, then members, then communities) isn't just a philosophy. At Marine, it's a program structure, a staffing plan, and increasingly, a track record.

"They are going to wake up in the morning excited to go to work to serve their purpose," Lichty said of Marine's counselors. "And when they do that, they are going to do a better job all around."

For the 72,000 members Marine serves across Wisconsin and Iowa, that's not an abstract promise. It's what happens when a credit union decides that investing in its people and investing in its members are the same thing.