No, Dave Gregory shook his enormous head, he’s not trying to become another Dave Thomas, of Wendy’s fame.

And no, he’s not aiming cheap shots at the banks. He’s only demonstrating that First Calgary Savings offers a brand of down-home customer service the bankers can’t match.

Chris Wood, Business Edge
First Calgary CEO Dave Gregory is big on transparency and accountability.

To celebrate his 10th anniversary as the credit union’s president/CEO, Gregory is starring in whimsical TV commercials that stress First Calgary’s people-first philosophy, while poking gentle jabs at big-bank mergers.

“But there’s nothing the banks offer that we don’t. There’s a big market in Calgary with lots of competitors. And they don’t scare me in the least,” said Gregory, who led First Calgary to a fifth successive year of record-breaking profits in 2001.

The big banks are already universally loathed, so there’s no point in dissing them in public. But spend an hour with this affable giant and you’re liable to wonder why First Calgary doesn’t enjoy 99.9 per cent market share, instead of an estimated eight per cent.

It’s not that they offer vastly better prices or interest rates. It’s because a credit union’s benefits are those of ownership, and they’re significant.

In Gregory’s co-operative world, there are no customers. Only owner-members.

At the end of a good year – and they’ve all been good during the second half of Gregory’s tenure – First Calgary members receive equity dividends, in the form of shares.

In 2001, for example, a pre-tax profit of $8 million-plus translated to more than $3 million in patronage and common share dividends, as well as almost $2 million in investment-share dividends, divvied up among 90,000 shareholders.

First Calgary’s profit-sharing mechanism fosters a similar sense of ownership among its 330 employees. Last year, almost $1 million went back to the staff, according to a formula that defines annual targets for each job, and evaluates the relative impact each person makes within the company.

Gregory insists managers don’t qualify for extra benefits, or obscene bonuses.

“One year, when we were trying to build this thing, nobody got a raise, and neither did I,” he said with obvious pride.

Other credit-union pluses: transparency and accountability. Gregory says customers . . . sorry, owner-members, call the shots, because they elect his bosses, namely the directors.

Of course, members in the market for a loan are expected to meet the same standards required by a bank.

But if they can’t hack what Gregory calls First Calgary’s “conservative” credit criteria, at least they’ll know they were turned down by someone they know.

“We can’t duck you,” said Gregory, in contrast to the big banks, where “the people making the decisions aren’t necessarily the ones you’re dealing with.”

A banker by training, the Oakville-born Gregory joined First Calgary in 1992, when the organization was suffering a crisis of confidence, a hangover from the bad old economic days of the mid-1980s.

Gregory characterized his role in revving up the dispirited credit union as that of a head coach/cheerleader.

“The idea was to build the belief that we could do some good for the community, as well as do better business.”

“I told the board: ‘If you want me to tear things apart, I won’t take the job. I’ll come if you want me to build on (existing) strengths.”

The corporate model was streamlined, internal training programs were intensified and selected individuals were “made accountable,” in Gregory’s tactful phrase.

A then-and-now comparison is revealing.

Then: 65,000 member-owners, a balance sheet of $650 million, and an inability to provide such basic services as mutual funds, or U.S. dollar accounts.

Now: 90,000-plus members, a balance sheet in excess of $1 billion and a full range of bank-style services.

Word has spread by means of aggressive marketing, as well as an impressive range of community-based initiatives. Gregory feels these reinforce First Calgary’s image as an updated version of upright George Bailey’s Savings and Loan, from the ’40s flick, It’s a Wonderful Life.

But good ol’ George never kept in touch with customers via a BlackBerry Wireless Handheld, an idea that particularly fascinates the CEO.

Ultimately, the company hopes to place these communicators in the pockets of each owner-member, enabling them to do all their banking from the palms of their hands, 24 hours daily.

They can even e-mail the boss – a golden opportunity to critique his acting in those TV ads.