When life took an unexpected turn, this Minnesota credit union was there

When Diane McComesky walked into the Virginia, Minnesota, branch of Northern Communities Credit Union in the fall of 2013, the staff already knew her by name. They also knew she had just lost her husband, George. What McComesky needed to tell them was that without his income, she was terrified she would have to sell the home they had shared for 24 years — the home they had built together on a lake in St. Louis County.  

"I truly went into a panic mode," she said. "I thought, I'm going to have to sell our home." The couple’s mortgage had no insurance, and with George gone, the payments rested entirely on her shoulders.

McComesky is a retiree from St. Louis County, Minnesota, and a longtime member of Northern Communities Credit Union, a $126-million institution that serves roughly 6,200 members from branches in Duluth and Virginia, Minnesota. George had been a member since before their 1989 wedding, back when the credit union still went by its original name: Duluth City and County Employees Credit Union. When McComesky walked into the Virginia branch that fall, she wasn’t greeted by a queue number or a scheduling link. She was greeted by name.

‘We’re going to walk this journey with you’

Shannon Lundquist, the credit union’s vice president of lending, told McComesky to take a breath and connected her with mortgage specialist Koby Meyer. Together, they worked out a plan: McComesky applied a portion of a life insurance payout to reduce the existing mortgage balance to a level she could manage on a single income. The whole process, from first conversation to signed paperwork, wrapped up in roughly three months.

“It was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders,” McComesky said. “I can stay in the home that we built together, built together with love.”

Trina Hoff, the credit union’s president and CEO, calls McComesky’s story one of the most memorable in her 32 years at the institution. “We listened to what she needed. We listened to her worries, her wants and needs, and we pulled it all together and made things happen for her,” Hoff said. “She needed to know she was not going to walk this journey by herself.”

A relationship that keeps delivering

That 2013 mortgage restructuring was not a one-time rescue. In the years since, McComesky has returned to Northern Communities Credit Union whenever life threw a curveball, and each time the staff found a way forward.

In 2016, a near-fatal motorcycle accident left her out of commission for months. Stuck in bed, she racked up credit card debt she couldn’t manage. Lundquist connected her with financial counseling through Lutheran Social Services (at the time, the credit union had not yet built its own financial literacy program) and reassured her that the situation was fixable.

In 2023, McComesky woke up to brown water streaming from her faucet. The well’s conditioning system and the home’s pipes both needed full replacement. Loan officer Lisa Maki set up a home equity line of credit that was approved within days, letting McComesky commission the specialized work her well required without scrambling for funds.

More than transactions

Ask McComesky what sets a credit union apart, and she doesn’t lead with rates or fees. She leads with recognition. “You walk into the credit union, and it’s, ‘Oh, hi, good morning, Diane, how are you?’ Everyone acknowledges you by name,” she said. “With the big-box banks, it’s like, pick a number or let me put you on hold.”

She also points to the difference in philosophy when a member’s credit isn’t perfect. “They can’t always help you that day, but they will find a way,” she said. “They will help you get to the point where they can help you.” It is a sharp contrast, McComesky added, to banks that simply turn applicants away for not hitting a threshold score.

George McComesky captured the spirit in a credit union commercial he filmed around 2011. His closing line, “We are NCCU,” was a deliberate choice of pronoun, his wife recalled. “He meant we, the members,” she said. “And that still carries through.”

Investing in financial literacy across the community

The same member-first ethos that shaped McComesky’s experience now drives one of the credit union’s most ambitious initiatives. Over the past five years, Northern Communities Credit Union has built a dedicated financial literacy program that reaches far beyond its membership. A financial education specialist visits area high schools to lead reality fairs and workshops, and the credit union also provides financial coaching inside St. Louis County’s addiction recovery court. It helps participants who may never have managed a checking account learn to budget, save, and plan.

“We actually have won multiple national awards for this program,” Hoff said. “This is something I hold near and dear to my heart, because I know there’s a need out there, with our students, with adults, with people sustaining loss and divorce. They need us, and we want to walk those journeys with them.” The credit union is now adding a second staff member to the department to expand its community reach.

Hoff herself started at the credit union as a 19-year-old part-time teller and has worked through every department in the three decades since. That ground-level experience, she said, reinforces the culture. “We drank the credit union Kool-Aid here,” she said. “Every one of us has. It’s the credit union difference. We are making an impact on our community.”

Full circle

McComesky’s devotion to Northern Communities Credit Union has come full circle. After retiring from St. Louis County, she was elected to the credit union’s supervisory committee in April 2025, a volunteer oversight role that lets her give back to the institution that stood by her. She has enrolled in training through the Minnesota Credit Union Network and describes the position as a “huge learning process” she’s eager to grow into.

For credit unions searching for a way to articulate the credit union difference to prospective members, McComesky’s message is simple: it starts with people who know your name and ends with people who refuse to let you face a crisis alone. “They’re not all about just money,” she said. “They care about the community.”