Volunteer of the Year $500M or Less Bill Milam Pioneer Appalachia Federal Credit Union Charleston, West Virginia Over the course of his life, Bill Milam has volunteered 51 years of service to Pioneer Appalachia Federal Credit Union, beginning with a position as Credit Committee Chair in 1972. Since then, he has ultimately served continuously in every volunteer position and continues to set the pace for everyone else as the credit union’s longest serving volunteer and current board chair. Milam advocates a balanced “stakeholder” approach to governance seeking to benefit members, the staff and the community, emphasizing member value over profitability in the pricing of loans, shares and fees. Always planning for the future, he recently focused attention on board and executive succession planning and the improvement of governance practices. His bold leadership, encouragement and thoughtful approach often provides courage to fellow board members to step out of their comfort zones. In the day-to-day, Milam exhibits excellent moderation skills in the conduct of board meetings, and is actively engaged, asking questions of management during meetings. There is never a question about whether he reads and digests the information provided in the pre-meeting materials delivered to each board member. When Milam joined the board, the credit union had assets of about $7 million with a field of membership limited to employees of the local school system. Now, the field of membership of Pioneer Appalachia Federal Credit Union has expanded to include a 28-county rural district charter with 18,000 members and assets of $225 million. Pioneer Appalachia Federal Credit Union has made significant investments into technology as members’ needs change and has just completed construction of a new branch in Morgantown, W.Va. Pioneer’s multiple national accolades include recognition as NAFCU’s “Credit Union of the Year” in 2012, and more recently being named, for the fifth time, as one of the nation’s “Best Credit Unions to Work For” in research conducted by the Credit Union Journal and the Best Companies Group. Milam sees the value in exchanging ideas and networking with his peers in the credit union industry and has taken advantage of many NAFCU conferences to take new skills back to the board. He is an invaluable member of the Pioneer Appalachia Federal Credit Union Board of Directors and is always working to better the credit union. 29 THE NAFCU JOURNAL September–October 2023
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTY1NDIzOQ==