In 1951, an eleven-member credit union kept all of its assets in a shoebox.  The members of the newly formed Redstone Federal Credit Union each chipped in five bucks.  A shoebox must’ve seemed like a reasonable place to keep fifty five dollars.  They could’ve managed with something even smaller.  They must have been optimists.

If that’s the case, the optimism was well-placed.  Over fifty years have passed and Redstone is well beyond using shoe boxes.  The Huntsville, Alabama-based credit union is the biggest in the state and its membership stretches out over the whole of the U.S. and around the world.  The little CU from Huntsville has gone big-time.

Redstone may have started with eleven people, but its membership is now well over a quarter of a million and (at 292,307) is butting up against the 300K mark.  Instead of tracking a measly fifty five dollars, the assets of Redstone Federal Credit Union now sit around $2.4 billion.

It probably didn’t take a lot of manpower to handle RFCU in ’51, but today the credit union cuts paychecks to over seven hundred full-time employees.  They also have a higher-than-average employee to member ratio.  The resulting service undoubtedly plays into Redstone’s success.

But Redstone isn’t just big.  It’s good.  Very good.  It’s a member of the exclusive “Exceptional Performance Credit Unions” club.  That doesn’t happen because you stuff a few shoe boxes.  Wikipedia sheds a little light on how the financial industry views the Alabama credit union:

“RFCU has a 5-Star rating by BauerFinancial Inc., the highest rating by the company, noting the Credit Union is safe, financially sound, and operating well above its regulatory capital requirements. By achieving this rating for 44 consecutive quarters, RFCU is one of the safest credit unions in the country. Having earned this distinction for 10 years or more, RFCU has earned a spot in an even more exclusive category of Exceptional Performance Credit Unions.”

Joseph H. Newberry is the guy sitting at the head of the Redstone table.  He’s the President and CEO, having returned to RFCU after a stint as the head of the Achieva Credit Union in Florida.  Newberry’s been in the business for over thirty years, including an earlier thirteen-year run at Redstone in a variety of executive capacities.

As you might expect coming from a guy who’s running a successful CU, Newberry sounds optimistic about the coming year.   While other institutions are in full “duck and cover” mode, Redstone Federal Credit Union’s CEO says:

“We have a long history of providing the membership of this Credit Union with excellent financial services and financial education, and that is why we are among the top leaders in the credit union industry. In these times of economic uncertainty, we have the resources available to help you in these challenging times.”

It’s sort of nice to run into a place like Redstone at a time like this.  They’ve managed their assets well and seem well-positioned for continued success.  It’s impossible to predict how the next fifty years will play out for RFCU, but everything appears to be on an upward trajectory, just like the rocket in their logo.

NOTE:  Speaking of the logo…  RFCU has one of the best logos in the financial world.  While some companies go with pastels and gradients and most make a point of finding a logo that merely hints at some other symbol, RFCU offers an old-school line drawing of a rocket piercing the clouds.

The Rocket is a nod to Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which has been a key NASA site since 1960.

The straightforward presentation and regional tie-in make the RFCU logo one of the best around.