If you take good care of your customers, and you take good care of employees, there will be an adequate return for your shareholders.

My new employees had been competing against me for so long, they were afraid to have their competitor become their new boss. They resented the fact that we were onboard. I didn't know how hostile it would be.

Many of our employees have been here 25 or 30 years. Loyalty isn't dead. It's just changed a bit. The old lifetime-employment guarantee may be gone, but that's okay, because it was almost like a parent-child relationship. We'd rather see it as a business deal between two adults -- and we do promise that we will invest in your career.

To instill fear in employees about their jobs is bad enough, to instill fear that members' savings are in jeopardy is an outright lie. I am sure the National Credit Union Administration, the U.S. government agency that insures members' deposits up to $100,000, will have something to say about this.

The public has a vested interest in being sure that public employees are carrying out their duties in a professional way. In some of the cases, we received the entire file and then in others we didn't get anything. That has the appearance that there's a different standard for different types of employees.

The various bargaining units for employees will have to approve the offer before it can go into effect.