Member Spotlight: Daniel J. Garcia

CUNA Councils
August 29, 2007 | COMMENTS

Daniel Garcia was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and attended a junior high
school only four blocks away from CUNA headquarters. At 18 he joined the U.S. Army, where he received para-medical training and spent five years in hospital settings, making artificial limbs and orthopedic braces for injured soldiers.

“Those five years had me working beside surgeons in the operating room,” says Daniel. “I learned a life's worth of lessons in that time.”

Using the GI Bill, Daniel attended the University of Texas at San Antonio, earned an accounting degree, and went to work for the CPA firm of Peat Marwick Mitchell and Company.

“I specialized in bank audits and insurance,” he says. “Because I enjoyed finance and economics more than accounting, I jumped at the chance to join San Antonio City Employee's Federal Credit Union as controller.”

Several years later Daniel was promoted to CFO and has been working as a CFO for about 25 years. Currently he is CFO for Southwest Research Center Federal Credit Union.

He and his wife and have four sons, ages 21 to 30. Two are now engineers and two are about to graduate with teaching certificates. Daniel loves to play chess, garden, and “fiddle around” with a small violin. His second love is riding motorcycles—right now he is on bike number eight and looking for number nine.

Biggest challenge for 2007

This is probably true for most credit unions under $100 million: Making enough loans to grow both that portfolio and assets. However, the number-one issue I don't like is the way regulatory compliance has taken so much of our time away from actually providing value to our members.

Best advice

I've always found that knowing and following GAAP consistently will almost always keep you on the right path. Second, read the Wall Street Journal daily so you know what's going on in the rest of the world.

Greatest benefit of Council membership

Sharing ideas and experiences. Being a member of the Council allows me to see what others before me have learned. It also lets me see how much there is to learn, no matter how much you already know. It has become my second choice for answers to current issues, when just reading the regulations isn't clear enough.

Best part of my job

I have fun every day.

Hardest part of my job

BSA compliance, and making sure our staff and board are adequately trained in that area.

Success story

Being a part of a team that restored the historical Mopac railroad station as our new credit union headquarters, and being able to recognize all the profit from the sale of our old building, all at once, under a sale/lease back deal, because we knew ahead of time how to meet all the rules to do so. Follow GAAP.

Hobbies and interests

Chess, gardening, bowling, camping, motorcyles, history, and world events.

People would be surprised to learn that I . . .

Used to break wild horses! I have also read six versions of the Bible, most of the book of Mormon, the book of Mohamed, and The Christian Scientist's form of the bible.

Recent book

The Lost Books of the Bible and the Hidden Books of the Garden of Eden.

Life goal not yet accomplished

Becoming a CEO.

Something that always makes me laugh

A good joke or something unexpected from my three-year-old grandson Benjamin.

If I had an extra hour in the day . . .

I'd build a woodworking shop.