'Passionate' is over-used as well as over-wrought. Yet we can't express fervidly enough the zeal with which the Housing Czar must pursue their mission. And a big mission it is. For most of our thirty years as mortgage lenders, the mortgage department has been cocooned, off in its own little corner of the credit union, doing its own thing, un-integrated with all other lending activities and unplugged from the broader world of real estate finance. One task facing your Czar is to bring mortgage lending into the bright sunlight of housing finance. This position's top-level responsibility? Drive the cultural and business changes necessary to make housing finance a front-and-center activity, a core, leading strategy for the credit union. Tangibly, this responsibility may take the form of an annual housing finance plan for the credit union, a plan that examines and explains the housing situations in the communities in which the credit union lends, explores the local real estate community and forms relationships, understands the mortgage programs and products necessary to serve the membership and ensures that systems and processes deliver the best member experience in the most efficient manner. Planning is step one. Execution is a more important second step.

The CU Housing RoundTable will be publishing a White Paper on this topic for release at its Third Annual Meeting on October 16 and 17 in Seattle. In the meantime, appoint a Czar and get busy on the plan. Eighteen months will pass before we know it.