Jay Champion of Elevations Credit Union, 2014 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Recipient

Abstract

Jay Champion is the Chief Operating Officer of Elevations Credit Union. He directs all aspects of the credit union's commercial, consumer, and mortgage lending programs and oversees its retail delivery channels-including all branches, the Elevations call center and remote delivery. Jay is also responsible for governmental affairs, ensuring Elevations maintains excellent relationships with regulators and lawmakers, and marketing, which builds awareness of the Elevations brand and manages communication with current and prospective members.Jay was the executive vice president and chief lending officer with Texans Credit Union before joining Elevations in 2011 and previously served at three other banks in North Texas. He has a BS in Economics and an MBA from Texas A&M University- Commerce, and he is a graduate of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at Southern Methodist University.Author: How and why did the executives of Elevations make the decision to apply for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award?Jay Champion: In 2008, Elevations' new CEO Gerry Agnes brought forth the Baldrige framework as a roadmap for the institution to use to focus on continuous improvement and long-term sustainability. Elevations was fundamentally sound and moderately profitable, but the Great Recession was wreaking havoc on many financial institutions and our credit union was stagnating. We needed a path forward-one which was comprehensive in its approach and would help our enterprise create a holistic foundation for future success in the midst of turmoil and uncertainty.Author: How were the executives of Elevations involved in the implementation of the Baldrige initiative?Jay Champion: Gerry quickly gained the endorsement and support of the board of directors for the Baldrige framework. Beginning in the spring of 2009, the leadership team led the credit union through the development of a new Core Purpose, Vision, Values, and a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). The entire organization was involved in the discernment of these foundational elements, which significantly contributed to every team member's sense of ownership and pride in these crucial statements and beliefs. Our BHAG became "We will win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award!" While the goal was stated as winning the award, the purpose of pursuing Baldrige all along was for the improvements we knew it would drive for our membership and our teams.As the organization changed, matured, learned and grew over the next five years, all of our senior leaders remained engaged and vocal supporters of the Baldrige framework, believing it truly was our playbook for future success. We all grew in our knowledge of the Baldrige criteria together-only a few of us had varying levels of experience working with Baldrige before joining Elevations-but despite varying degrees of knowledge, all leaders supported this work with their voices and their hard work. Over time, the entire organization got behind the effort, especially as early success and improvements began to gain traction.Author: What were some of the major benefits from utilizing the Baldrige criteria in your organization?Jay Champion: It's truly hard to summarize just how comprehensive and far-reaching the benefits of Baldrige have been for us. Credit unions have mutual ownership structures, so our members are both our shareholders and customers. Our membership has benefited in so many ways-better service metrics, faster loan turnaround times, improved products, higher loyalty scores (we are big believers in the value of measuring and improving Net Promoter® Scores). We've also markedly improved our financial performance in almost every metric and doubled the credit union's net worth since 2009.Baldrige forced us to create structure where it was needed, to measure what mattered, to innovate in ways that added value to our members, to focus on our core competences, and to choose what we were going to be best at. …