Small credit union leader turns corporate loss into community comeback
Christie Smith admits she prayed harder before some board meetings than others. The hardest came the day she asked Acclaim Federal Credit Union’s board of directors to sever ties with the corporate sponsor that had given the credit union its reason to exist. She was asking them to trust her to build something new.
“We kind of had to take our destiny into our own hands,” Smith said.
That decision launched a years-long effort to reinvent a small Greensboro, N.C., credit union that today serves as a case study in what resilience looks like inside the credit union movement.
A foundation shaken
Acclaim Federal Credit Union was founded in 1972 to serve employees of Blue Bell, a Greensboro-based workwear company with roots stretching to Tennessee. After Blue Bell merged with VF Corporation in 1986, the credit union continued serving VF employees and their families at distribution centers across the country and internationally in Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras.
Then, in 2018, VF Corporation announced it would relocate its headquarters from Greensboro to Denver. At the same time, the company spun off its denim brands, including Wrangler, Lee, and others, into a new entity called Kontoor Brands, which remained headquartered in Greensboro. Employees either moved to Denver, shifted to Kontoor, or lost their jobs. Acclaim’s membership base fractured.
The practical fallout hit quickly. VF had provided the infrastructure that the credit union relied on daily, from phone systems and internet service to building maintenance. Acclaim had months to stand up its own technology, port phone numbers, and learn to operate independently.
Pandemic meets pivot
The timing could hardly have been worse. The infrastructure scramble collided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Acclaim never closed its doors; staff kept the branch running, sometimes through the drive-through only. Yet the credit union lost access to new-hire orientations at Kontoor, its primary pipeline for new members.
Membership decline accelerated. Smith, then the chief administrative officer, and the outgoing CEO presented the board with data showing the trend was unsustainable. Many board members were VF or Kontoor retirees who had deep emotional ties to the original sponsorship. Convincing them to let go took more than a year of collecting data, making the case, and meeting after meeting, Smith said.
By 2021, the board agreed to pursue a new charter. Smith researched community charter options and found a valuable ally at the National Credit Union Administration. An NCUA staff member guided her toward applying for a metropolitan statistical area designation covering three counties: Guilford, Randolph, and Rockingham. The staffer noted that a poverty line ran through the region. The charter was approved in 2024, the same year Smith officially became president/CEO.
Opening in Stoneville
With a new charter in hand, Smith hit the road. She met with economic developers across the three-county region, looking for communities that needed what a credit union could offer. An economic developer in Rockingham County pointed her toward Stoneville, a small town that had been without any financial institution since its last bank branch closed in 2022.
Smith began presenting to the mayor and town council. The fit was natural: the town owned the vacant former bank building and wanted to revitalize its downtown; the credit union needed an affordable location and a community eager for service. Acclaim and Stoneville ultimately partnered to restore the vacant building into a new branch. Together, they secured a $200,000 grant from the North Carolina Department of Commerce to restore the historic Fidelity Building, uncovering original stonework that had been hidden under siding for years.
“Asking the board to trust me to start this branch was probably the scariest for me,” Smith said. She had spent 25 years in the credit union industry and had never opened a branch from scratch. Acclaim held its grand opening in Stoneville in early March 2026. Within weeks, the credit union recorded net membership growth for the first time in years, reversing a long stretch in which account closures outpaced new openings.
Smith's path into the industry was hardly predestined. In 2001, she was performing collections duties for a doctor's office and working Saturdays, but she wanted to be able to watch her son play T-ball. A position opened at American Partners Federal Credit Union, and she took it for the non-weekend schedule. Once inside, though, she learned about industry pioneers like Louise Herring and Dora Maxwell, women who had led in the credit union movement at a time when having females in those positions was almost unheard of. The history changed something in her. "This is a calling for me," Smith said. "It's not a job."
What comes next
Smith’s goal for the Stoneville branch is straightforward: open 500 accounts, with half carrying a loan and a checking relationship, to reach profitability. But she measures success in broader terms as well.
“I believe that we have something great to offer all communities, and especially underbanked communities,” she said. “We get to change people’s story every single day.”
Smith, who serves on the America’s Credit Unions Small Credit Unions Committee and the Carolinas Credit Union League board, recently discussed the unique pressures facing smaller institutions during a meeting with America’s Credit Unions President/CEO Scott Simpson. She told him what she tells her own staff: patience matters for small credit unions, because the dream is big, but the timeline is long.
Her advice for other credit union leaders navigating disruption comes down to a single word her team borrows from a famous sitcom scene: pivot.
“You have to be willing to pivot quickly and then regather yourself and keep going,” Smith said. “There is a way to do what you want to do. You’ve just got to figure it out.”
