SECU employee recognized for 50-year milestone

GREENVILLE — An eastern North Carolina woman recently achieved a first-time career milestone within the State Employees’ Credit Union.

Rose Skinner was recognized for reaching 50 years of employment at the credit union during the organization’s board of directors meeting in Wilmington earlier this month.

Skinner is the first person employed by the 87-year-old organization to reach that milestone.

“Rose Skinner has spent her entire career serving in Greenville, building strong relationships with our members, while training and mentoring many employees across the state,” said Mona Moon, SECU board chairwoman. “She leads with a servant’s heart and is a shining example of the credit union philosophy of ‘People Help People.’”

Skinner, 73, said she did not expect the recognition. Prior to the board of directors’ meeting, her coworkers held a surprise anniversary party.

“My members who come in will say if you love what you are doing, don’t stop. This retirement is not what it’s cracked up to be. I wish I never left my job when I did. I can’t tell you how much I hear that,” Skinner said.

“I always tell them I’ve heard them say if you stop moving, you’ll lose it.”

Here before the building

Skinner didn’t know much about credit unions when she joined the organization in 1974 at the age of 23.

After graduating from high school, where she took multiple business courses, Skinner worked for two finance agencies in Greenville. Then she moved to Raleigh and briefly worked at an advertising agency.

Her plans for living in Raleigh didn’t fully materialize. She wanted to move back to Greenville but didn’t have a job.

A family friend suggested she apply for a part-time teller’s position with SECU, which was then housed on West Belvoir Road, on the grounds of the N.C. Department of Transportation facility.

“I didn’t know anything about the State Employees’ Credit Union,” Skinner said. “I just knew the State Employees’ Credit Union would be an awesome place to start my career. That’s an understatement; it’s been one of the best things to happen to me,” Skinner said.

Banks and credit unions offer similar services such as checking and savings accounts, but banks typically are for-profit enterprises with shareholders and credit unions are nonprofit organizations owned by members.

When the State Employees’ Credit Union started in 1937 it had 17 members and $437 in assets, according to its website. Today, SECU has $50 billion in assets and serves more than 2.7 million members.

Skinner was hired for the part-time position but on her first day of work, she happily learned she had been moved into the full-time teller position. A year later, the office moved to the First Street location where Skinner still works.

“I always tell everybody I was here before the building,” Skinner said.

People person

For decades, the First Street branch was one of the busiest in North Carolina, Skinner said, with members traveling from Manteo, Nags Head and Ahoskie.

Within the last 25 years the credit union’s growth has exploded. There are now five branches in Pitt County and dozens more across eastern North Carolina, including three branches in Rocky Mount and one branch each in the towns of Nashville and Tarboro.

“We have branches in every little town. We even had to open a branch in Swan Quarter,” she said.

Skinner is a financial service manager. She manages and trains the tellers who work in the branch. But her favorite part of the job is working as a teller and interacting with customers, many of whom have known her for 30 or 40 years or more.

When she first started, SECU members had passbooks, a notebook where people recorded their financial transactions including deposits, withdrawals, interest earnings and account balance. She often would help members balance their passbooks.

While passbooks no longer exist, she still occasionally sits with a member to help them balance their monthly statements.

Skinner said working with the credit union’s auditing team was the only other job she ever considered doing with the organization. She was occasionally brought in to help the auditors count money in the tills because she was fast and accurate. She enjoyed getting a branch’s records to balance.

However, most members of the audit team were recruited from the loan division, she said. Skinner said she handled loads when she worked at the finance agencies. She liked working with people, but if someone missed payments, she was responsible for repossessing the items they purchased.

“I hated it. I just didn’t enjoy that part of it,” she said. “Lending here is a lot different but I where I love is on the teller line. I just have a lot more contact with members.”

Her supervisors often tell her she needs to work in her office, but Skinner said she can handle her managerial duties while serving members.

“I’m just a people person and I care about people. That is what the credit union is about,” she said. “Our motto is people helping people, that is literally what I love.”

Career milestone

Skinner said she never set out to achieve a 50-year milestone. Along with enjoying the interaction with credit union members, continuing to work has allowed her to help out family members over the years, including caring for her late mother and helping raise a great-grandnephew.

She loves flowers and working in her yard but that’s not enough to keep her busy — she’d have to get a job at a garden center or something like that to occupy her time. She enjoys gardening, dancing and visiting the beach, but doesn’t picture herself spending hours a day playing bridge and pursuing her hobbies.

“I’m still working because I am a single person and with the economy the way it is, and the things I try to do to help people, I need to work and I don’t want to have to go out and work somewhere else because it will never match up to what I already have,” she said.

Her coworkers are another reason she enjoys her job. The credit union sponsors after-hour activities to encourage its employees to socialize. She’s proud of the accomplishments many of her coworkers have obtained.

“I have an employee out there who has been here 27 years and then another one has been here 20 years. I have one that has been here for 10 years. Not to mention the ones who transferred and are now branch managers or in my position, FSM,” she said.

During her tenure, she has had only four managers, including one who held the position for 35 years.

She also had a coworker who nearly reached the 50-year mark several years ago. When asked why he didn’t continue working, he said it wasn’t a milestone he needed to meet.

Skinner said while she knew her golden anniversary was approaching, she didn’t talk about it with her coworkers.

That’s because while the credit union recognizes retirements it hasn’t traditionally recognized the anniversary dates of long-serving employees.

“Some of the things they’ve done, in the emails they sent, (credit union officials) said we don’t normally do celebrations like this but we’ve never had anybody who has worked 50 years,” she said. “They do retirement parties but they don’t have to do a retirement party for me. They have already gone way over and above. I never expected anything like it’s been.”

Skinner said earlier in her career, she often attended state board of directors meetings to learn about activities taking place in the region.

She said she was stumped when her district manager invited her to the Wilmington meeting but thought she should go if the credit union asked her to.

“I kept thinking why did they invite me? I used to go to the board meetings they used to have in Raleigh ... you could attend it if you wanted to and I wanted to go to everything with the credit union,” Skinner said. “I never expected them to present anything.”

Her legs started shaking after being called to the stage to be recognized. Luckily a man helped her up the four stairs leading to the stage.

“I just said thank you so much. I didn’t give a speech,” she said.

“I have worked since I was 15 ... and I worked at Jerry’s Sweet Shop at Pitt Plaza,” Skinner said. “I have always worked, and it made me who I am, and I wouldn’t take anything for it.”