Margarete Mucker: [00:00:00] Sometimes you have to make a decision quick and fast. You cannot wait, six months or you miss the boat. So sometimes it’s, allow your senior management to make decisions or to engage in something and not let the process stop them. From doing for moving forward with something because there’s so many layers of approvals.

And I know in other financial institutions, there’s 10 different layers that a project has to go through before it gets approved. Or if it’s not in the budget, you can’t do it. So that’s the other thing that, you know, when you budget for something, you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to know what happens the next year.

Josh DeTar: [00:01:00] Your podcast hasn’t officially made it until there’s ads in it. But this is one you’re not going to want to skip past. And if you do, feel free to hit that fast forward 15 seconds button twice. Ever wonder what gives me my energy and enthusiasm during these podcasts? Outside of my relentless desire to learn about, connect, share, and build up community FIs and their mission to support the communities they serve?

It’s coffee. And lots of it. Now, you want to know what’s better than your regular old coffee? How about donating $5 to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals [00:02:00] through Credit Unions for Kids every time you purchase high-quality, ethically sourced coffee that also provides living wages to coffee farmers.

So if you want to listen to this episode with epic levels of caffeine induced focus and help kids in need, head to java4kids.org to learn more and buy a bag or ten. Thanks.

Josh: Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast. My guest today is Margarete Mucker, the recently retired EVP of operations for Star One Credit Union. If you’ve listened to this podcast before, you likely know I can get a little long winded in my intros of the guest after all they’re the star of the show. But I’m not going to do that today because if I get started, I may never stop. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Margarete for many years. And if you ask her the two most important things in the world to her are number one, her family, and then second, the impact she’s able to have at work. She made a comment to me once that you [00:03:00] take something away from every interaction you have with a person.

Stay tuned to this podcast. As I have no doubt in my mind, the stories Margarete is going to share with us today about both her personal and professional life will have profound impacts on you just as they’ve had on me. Without further ado, it’s with great pleasure I’d like to introduce you to Margarete.

Hey Margarete, welcome to the show.

Margarete: Thank you, Josh. Thank you for having me,

Josh: Of course this is a very special episode. This is episode number 100 of the Digital Banking Podcast. And for those of you who have been listening to the podcast over the years, you’ll know Margarete was also one of our very first guests on this podcast. There’s a big reason why I wanted to have you on the big special 100 Margarete and it really is because of what I mentioned in the intro that you’ve had a really profound impact on my life and I know for a fact on many other people’s lives around you.

And this is not going to come as a surprise to you because you’ve heard me say it [00:04:00] before, but I’m hell bent on it. I truly believe there’s a lifetime movie to be made about you. And I’m really hoping that maybe this podcast will just be what gets some Hallmark executive to listen up and go, ah, yeah, there’s a Hallmark movie right there.

Because you really do have an incredible story. So I want to take us back and I would love to have you share a little bit of this story with our listeners. And for those of you that are listening, yes, I promise there are tie-ins all across the board for this. Stay tuned for some sort of really good insight from Margarete.

But so Margarete, start way back. You have an accent. People probably picked up on that. Where’s it from?

Margarete: So I grew up in Germany and I started my career in banking actually in Germany. Once I graduated from high school I started doing an apprenticeship at a German bank. And and then it just so happened I met my current husband in Germany at a festival that was [00:05:00] taking place in my hometown.

And I was young. So I’m going to give away a little bit of secrets here, but I was 17 and and, of course the relationships didn’t start out, like we’re going to get married, but anyway, in a very short time realized that he was a love of my life and that we wanted to get married and then the Air Force threw a kink into this and decided to send him back to the States.

And I was in the middle of my apprenticeship, so it was very difficult. And I was under age 17. And I had to have my permission from my mother to marry, and Tony, actually, my husband had to get permission from his commander to marry me because of the age. My mom knew Tony, loved him, but, 17-year-old daughter all of a sudden going up and moving to the U.S. wasn’t that appealing to her at the time, but she gave permission.

So we did get married in May. So coming right up May 10th in 1974 [00:06:00] and moved to the States. And that’s how I ended up being here in the U S and that’s how my journey really started. It was obvious, we got married in the mid-seventies. My husband is African American and also one of the fears, my mother and my older brother and my sister, I’m the youngest of three.

The fear that they had, how an interracial relationship would do here in the U. S. Because all we saw on German TV was all the chaos in the streets and the fights and and they both, they all had concerns about my being here in the U. S. And but, I was in love. I said I can handle it as long as things are okay between me and my family.

My husband, we can handle everything. And even back then, yes, I was 17, but I was maybe a little bit older than you look at some of the 17-year-olds that you may think today. And I was a little bit more mature. But it was something that I wanted to do. I turned, we [00:07:00] got married in May and I turned 18 in August.

As an 18-year-old,I didn’t need my mother’s permission. So basically one of the things I said to, if you don’t let me marry him now, when I turn 18, I’m going to leave. I’m just going to move to the U.S. and follow him. And it didn’t come to that but it was a pretty, strong word for me.

I wanted this. I thought it was the right thing. And it turned out nearly 50 years later, it was the right thing. But that was my initial journey. How did I come to be in the United States? And that’s how it happened. Okay.

Josh: A super cool kind of spoiler to this whole story, right? Is that we’re actually recording this episode eight days away from your and Tony’s 50-year wedding anniversary, which. I just can’t speak highly enough. I’m just so impressed. And, as somebody who’s been able to interact with you over the years and in both, personal and [00:08:00] professional settings, one of the things I’ve always respected about you is just, how wonderfully you talk about Tony and to, To make anything last 50 years anymore is a pretty incredible testament.

But I want to go back because I think this story gets even more interesting the deeper you go. So Tony was in the military, right? he was there in Germany, but how do two even meet and how did, how did that story all go?

Margarete: We’re really getting into details, but

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. We’re going all the way in Margarete.

Margarete: Okay. So in Germany, I’m from the Rhine river region. So during the summer, each town has their own little festival and and It’s, it’s every year it’s been going on for ages and our, my town’s festival was a strawberry vine festival.

So strawberries were grown locally in the fields. They would harvest them and then they would make a strawberry bowl, a drink out of Strawberries, wine and some sparkling water, and send it down. So people wouldn’t get drunk so [00:09:00] quickly, but

Josh: Too quick. Yeah, we want you to be drunk all day, as opposed just in a short period. Yeah.

Margarete: So that was it. And, they’re well-known. The military base that Tony was stationed at was probably about 20 minutes from my hometown.

And The young GIs would go out and go and enjoy the festivals just like anybody else and and I met him just casually going down the market street and, him and a group of friends, me with a couple of girlfriends, just in crossing, he, they were working up, we were coming the other way and somehow Somebody said something and we stopped and we talked.

So remember, we were all young. We learned, we had a little bit of knowledge of English because we learned English in school. And so somehow we struck up a conversation with Tony and his friends and me and my friends. And we actually sat down, we had a drink together. In Germany, you can drink while you’re young, it’s not as serious as here in the U.S. 

And we sat down, we had a drink, and we probably talked for about [00:10:00] a couple of hours, and then we moved on. It was, oh, nice meeting you, had a good time. They went their way, we went our way. Okay? And that was it. The following year, at the same time in June, the strawberry Wine Festival. My sister and I would, we always would go because that’s the, that’s our hometown.

You would just do that. And we’re in the marketplace where all the, the booth, the booth where in the sit sitting arrangements, and my sister goes, she goes Margarete, somebody’s calling your name. And I said, I don’t hear anything. And she goes, no, somebody’s calling your name.

Then we started looking and trying to figure out. Who was calling me and here was Tony sitting on one of the benches looking at me and going, Margarete, like Margarete, is that you? Is that you? And I looked at him and I go, Oh yeah, Tony, I remember you from last year, right? It’s really interesting.

And as we started talking again, it was interesting. My sister actually, who’s a little older than I am, she actually started dating one of his [00:11:00] friends. And. And I was just, we just hung out together. And then, a couple of months later, then Tony and I started dating, but it was interesting.

We met one year ago, didn’t see each other for another year. The following year, he came back. He was looking for me. He, and if you ask him, he said, no, I had made such an impression on him. He came back looking for me. And sure enough, he found me and the rest is history.

Josh: Margarete, if that’s not a testament to how profound you are on people’s lives, you had a man wait a whole year thinking about you to go find you back at the Strawberry Wine Festival.

Margarete: Yeah. That’s pretty amazing, I know. I love about it today. But you’re right. But when you were young, it’s yeah, it was just coincidence, but no, he was looking, he came back to look for And I think spoiler alert 

Josh: Spoiler alert for, some of the other things that we intend to talk about today is really a story about being willing to take risks and to following your heart and following your gut. And sometimes that leads to opposition, right?

And while [00:12:00] it’s not necessarily the wisest choice to just, go against the flow or against the opposition just for the sake of doing it But if there’s compelling arguments, if there’s research behind it, if there’s, supporting validation and you believe, within your own strong will and conviction that this is the right thing to do based on, a proper foundation of ability to make good decisions, then, calculated risks can actually lead to really incredible rewards, right?

And I think. Correct me if I’m wrong, put some words in your mouth. But at the time being with Tony was a calculated risk, right? look back on it now and it was probably one of the best decisions ever.

Margarete: And being as young as I was, I wouldn’t say so much it was calculated, but it was a risk. But it wasn’t, when you’re young, you’re more willing to take on risk because, for one, you think you’re invincible. And it felt right. And I think that’s really what, at the time, like for that in my personal life, it just [00:13:00] felt right.

There was nothing that could have stopped me. Right from going with him because it felt so right for me and that I was willing to leave my family behind. And go with somebody to the U. S. different race, different culture, and just move, pack up and move. It is a risk, but I wouldn’t say it was calculated.

It was based on, face, love, and trust in Tony that he would take care of me. So it was the person that, that I felt that he would not let anything happen to me. And I trusted him and loved him completely. And that’s what made that, that transition easier. And I wasn’t afraid of challenges.

And I felt, we can work through those things, as long as the relationship is strong enough between us, then we can, we can handle everything. Like I’ve told you before. I am not so much a person that relies on validation from other people. I don’t need that, right?

I’m my own [00:14:00] person. And if somebody doesn’t like me or who I am or who I’m married to, so be it. That’s okay. I’m okay. I don’t need to be friends with everybody and everybody has different beliefs and different views on life that is okay. I will just, then I won’t associate with you because I don’t need it, and that’s how it’s been. And sometimes, you can avoid it, sometimes you can’t, but then you can be an adult about it. We have our differences, but that does not mean I cannot have a conversation with somebody. Basically I’m not looking for their approval, right?

The approval comes from within me.

Josh: yeah. When I say it’s a calculated risk, just even hearing you talk about it, right? There’s, especially if we’re using this example, right? There are two sides to this party, right? And you, to your credit, had to have, maybe a little bit more mature, wise thought process about it.

But you also were looking for the right qualities in Tony at the time. And it wasn’t that it was no disrespect. I’m [00:15:00] just using a stereotype, but some crazy Mohawk tattooed band guy traveling around. He’s like, I love you baby. You’re the 36th woman I’ve said this to this week, but I love you. 

It wasn’t that, you were like, Hey, look, this is a guy that I really believe in. I have faith and I trust in him. And then to Tony’s credit, right? His personality was one that actually gave you that solid rock to stand on. And ultimately the two of you came together to say, Hey, we believe in this and we’re going to, we’re going to face whatever that takes to continue to be together.

I think that’s such a beautiful story.

Margarete: And like you said, it’ll tie in later into other items. 

Josh: But before we get off of this, I think this gets even better as we go. So talk to me a little bit about, yeah. So then, you two are dating, right? And then what happens that kind of prompts you to move to the U.S. and get married? And you were talking about, you were 17 at the time.

So your mom and his commander had to approve this. So the whole story behind that?

Margarete: Yeah. His tour was up in [00:16:00] Germany and initially he was told if he were to marry a German national, they would extend his tour. So we, so that’s when we started making plans to get married because then we said, okay, we can be together in Germany for another, maybe four years before you have to go to the States, finish my apprenticeship. But then come to find out when he went back and the military told him. It doesn’t matter who you’re going to marry or when, you’re going back to the

Josh: You’re going back.

Margarete: You’re going back, right? And that kind of escalated everything for us. So it’s not that I wanted to get married right away.

But when we were confronted that he had to leave and I had to stay and I didn’t want to stay right. And, and I think Josh, I told you before, but, almost from day one. Tony always asked me to marry him. It was, we had, he came looking for me the second year.

we actually started dating from day one, he always said, will you marry me? Will you marry me? And I was going, no, what are you thinking? I’m so young. I’m not ready yet. But when we were confronted with that, he had to leave and I had to [00:17:00] stay behind. That’s where I didn’t wanna take that chance that we would lose our relationship.

That it would come to an end. And so that’s when we kind, talk to my mom. My sister actually helped me and she talked to my mom. My, my brother was my older brother who just was, pointing out all the. potential situation I could get into, but in the end and part of it goes back to Tony’s personality that everybody knew him.

They all felt he was a good person, right? So it wasn’t like somebody that they felt they couldn’t trust that, they felt that they could trust him. And so we did get married in Germany and we got married in May and we left in June and came and moved to the U. S. So

Josh: And just for the record, so what branch of the service was Tony with?

Margarete: Air Force, he was in the air.

Josh: Also before we get any further, I just want to take an opportunity to thank Tony for his service. [00:18:00] We live not perfect lives here in America and we still have a lot of things that we can work on, I think.

But for all intents and purposes, we live in one of the most amazing countries in the world and we owe a lot of that to the sacrifices and the dedication of our servicemen and women and their families. So I just want to say thank you to Tony and to your entire family for what he’s contributed to this country.

So now you got to move to the U S so where do you land and why?

Margarete: Oh my God. We landed in Big Spring, Texas. So Big Spring, Texas was a small town of 20, 000 out in the middle of nowhere. It was Odessa, Midland in Texas has this loop. We were right in the corner, out in the desert, hotter than heck. It was June. And he was assigned there for 15 months.

So we got there and it was interesting. So one of the stories, in Germany, we see a lot of American TV series and shows, right? Everything is dubbed. And so the West Ends and, the tumbleweed is so typical [00:19:00] Western, going through the town and the tumbleweed goes across the road, right?

It’s, 

Josh: Yeah, 

Margarete: It, and that’s the impression and the impact that had on me because it was so typical in the West End, going to Texas, it was actually real, right?

Josh: It was really true. Yeah.

Margarete: It’s not something that they made up. You see the tumbleweed and that’s, it’s just one of those impressions that it had on me seeing things in a movie and then you actually go there and you can see it.

It’s for real. That’s the first thing that I go, Oh my God, this is for real, 

Josh: It really is Wild West out here.

Margarete: Yeah. The other amazing thing being, being in Texas is that you could drive for miles, hours and remember in the early 70s, there was no traffic. So you were out in the middle of nowhere, no cell phones, right?

If you got, if you were, got stuck. You literally were stuck, right? And, but, Germany’s small, everything is compact, and just to have this wide open, plain field was amazing to me. And it just gave me the impression about the U S how big it is, compared to Germany, it just was just such a [00:20:00] difference. And it just, it just felt good and was just amazing to see that, it’s just a different culture and it’s just the landscape was so amazing. Even though there was nothing there, it was flat, but it was just impressive to me.

Josh: Yeah. Your dog can run away for a day and you can still see him across the yard. 

Margarete: Yes, exactly.

Josh: yeah. So what did you do when you landed in Texas? While Tony was stationed there?

Margarete: I initially stayed at home and then I met a person and it was actually a German person and, don’t ask me how I, she was working at a hospital. I don’t know how I met her anymore. And she said, if you want her to work, we’re looking for somebody to work the night shift. And so I said, yeah, sure.

I want to work. And so I ended up working at that hospital and doing the night shift, which was actually not bad because I’m sorry, my dog is crying. Hang on a 

Josh: He’s very jealous.

Margarete: Ah, yes. So anyway I worked there until we left. And it was [00:21:00] it was my first job in the U. S. I was a nurse’s aide and it was good.

And I still had limited English. It wasn’t, my English wasn’t perfect. Cause it takes a little while to get all the vocabulary in your head. I understood a lot. I couldn’t speak as well. So anyway, and then we were there for about 10 months, and then Tony got orders to go to Korea.

And what that meant, it was a single tour, that means he could not take his wife. It was a, they’re calling it a remote tour, and there was no choice, when the military says, you go, you have

Josh: Yeah, you don’t get a say.

Margarete: Yeah, that’s how it is. And so because I was still young, I was 18 and I said, there’s no way I’m going to stay for a year.

It was for a year. I said, I’m going to stay there by myself and really didn’t have any friends yet. When he went to Korea, I went back to Germany and to stay with my mom. And then once Tony got to Korea and he goes, the military won’t sponsor you to fly out, but you can come as a tourist, and so after two months in [00:22:00] Germany, I flew out to Korea to be with him for the remaining 10 months of his tour. And we lived on the economy in Korea, right? As a tourist, I was a tourist, he was a military dependent and worked for the military. So it worked out. I was just there as a tourist and it was interesting.

Being in Korea in the there was a lot of turmoil with, between the North and South Koreans. So You know, sometimes every day you were on edge, whether there was a war going on, was going to break out, some kind of incident would happen at the zone, when you’re young, everything is an adventure. And after that, then we came back. Yeah, we came back to the States and we ended up in California.

Josh: So he ends up in California and so it talks to us a little bit about the role he lands there once you get into California and how that parlays into you getting back into banking. So if you remember back to the start of this story, Margarete originally had a career path in banking in Germany and then that all gets put on hold, but somehow it gets resurrected here when [00:23:00] you guys get back to California.

So

Margarete: Yeah. So there’s a, there’s another 10-year time span in between that. So when we got back to Yeah. California was Vandenberg Air Force Base by Santa Maria, Santa Barbara. Then we decided to have kids, so we had our son and daughter. And then I wanted to go back to Germany, be stationed in Germany so my kids could see My side of the family.

And so he put in for that time to go back to Germany. And we went back to Germany in 81. And then we spent 10 years in Germany, okay, in the military. And then in Germany, I ended up working for the military bank on base. So that’s when I got back into banking. I had a, I had a couple of years where I didn’t do anything that other things, but that’s when I went back into banking and I compare the military bank to being similar to a credit union because your clientele is off the same, right?

[00:24:00] It’s military. You don’t have outside people, so it’s military and some contractors. So similar to a credit unit, it’s a limited field of membership that comes. And I worked there for 10 years and I had a great time, worked myself up from a teller to an assistant manager, chief teller.

They called it a chief teller. And I actually had an opportunity to get promoted to a manager, but it was in a town that was too far for me to go. And I said, no but I worked for 10 years. And then in 91 Tony was ready to retire from the military after 22 years. And so we came back to the state so he could retire from the military.

And that’s when we ended up back at the same base, Vandenberg Air Force Base. And and then, I started working at the credit union at that bank, at that Air Force

Josh: When it’s good Tony was with Lockheed Martin, right?

Margarete: no, not, he

Josh: the base doing security.

Margarete: [00:25:00] Yeah, he was still military, but he had a friend that was retired from the military who ended up working at Lockheed Martin at that Vandenberg Air Force Base because they had the missiles

Josh: Yep.

Margarete: And the guy and that guy would tell him, they said, Hey, you’re getting ready to retire.

There’s no jobs down here, but Lockheed Martin has a big plant in Sunnyvale, California, go up there and they’re always looking for security people. And that’s what Tony ended up doing, right? He came up here, he went to Lockheed Martin, they hired him, and that’s how we moved up here in 92. And that’s when, and then that guy said too, he said, the Sunnyvale they have a credit union, your wife can work at the credit union up in Sunnyvale, right?

And that’s what prompted me when we came up here to apply. At Star One, it’s because of this person telling me, Just go, they have a credit union, you can work for that credit union. And that’s how I applied at Star One. In 92.[00:26:00] 

Josh: so the fun fact is, so Star One’s original field of membership was Lockheed Martin,

Margarete: Yes. Yes.

Josh: So that’s tie in there. But so it’s just hopefully like somebody else out there is validating this with me and somebody knows some executive at Hallmark and it’s yeah, no, we need to take some notes on this.

But it’s just such an incredible story from the first time you and Tony meet just two groups of people passing by. And then I think this is also such a, just a cool testament of. It’s not that hard to be a good person, right? Like it’s just not hard to be nice.

And for whatever reason, I think a lot of times in society, we just don’t take the time to say hi to somebody as we pass by on the street or, and I’m just as guilty of this as anybody is. But we’re all human just trying to make it through life and enjoy it. And a lot of that comes through, shared enjoyment of, connections and experiences with other people.

And like, how cool is it that two [00:27:00] groups that barely speak the same language, are just passing by each other, probably a few strawberry wine, spritzers deep, and Just start up a conversation and, now here we are. And again, the end result of this story is, Margarete has an absolutely incredible career of doing some amazing things at one of the largest credit unions in the country.

And you can trace it all the way back to literally, two groups of people that could very easily have never been kind to each other. And yet. I just, I think there’s so many cool elements to this story and that’s what I mean, why it’s had such a profound impact on my life is it’s just, it’s such a reminder that to your point that I mentioned in your intro, like you take away something from every interaction with people.

The interaction you take away, you have an opportunity to decide how you use that and what becomes of that, right? And like you said, too, sometimes you don’t even realize it until later. But especially if there’s positives and negatives to it you have a conscious decision to make whether you [00:28:00] choose to take away the positive or the negative from that interaction.

And then on the flip side, someone is having an interaction with you. You have an ability to choose whether you want to give off a positive or negative interaction for them to consume from you. So I don’t know. Those are just some of the things that have really stuck with me over the years, Margarete.

And okay, now. We’ve gotten back into Sunnyvale and Tony is doing security for Lockheed Martin. You’ve got connected through his friend to this credit union for the company. So now you had worked your way up back in the German banking system into, like management level, but when you started at Star One, you had to start all the way from scratch again, huh?

Margarete: Yep, I sure did. And I actually came in as a temporary teller because they didn’t even have a full-time position available. I came in as a temp, obviously hoping it would turn into full-time. And I also had applied at the Fremont bank, which is a local [00:29:00] bank here. And, in probably about two months into my employment, that temporary Fremont bank would call, called actually and said, offered me a full-time job.

And I went back to the Star One management. And I said I got this full-time offer from Fremont bank. I would like to stay here at, at Star One, but I need a permanent job, right? I need a full-time job. I can’t have a temp job where I could be, They could let me go tomorrow with no obligations, and then someone decided to hire me. It was one of them, they made a decision. They could have let me go but they decided to actually hire me then. And they actually hired me in May as well. And As a full-time teller, I said no to Fremont Bank and I stayed with Star One and that’s when everything happened, it just grew from there.

Josh: Then that, so talk about epic levels of full circle. So Margarete has the opportunity to as she steps out of Star One, [00:30:00] leaving some massive shoes to fill. To be able to groom up her replacement in Manal who came from Fremont bank. And I will give her and you the shout out of you left some monstrous shoes to fill and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say Manal has done an absolutely phenomenal job of stepping into that role and both, taking on the legacy that you built, but also, really making it her own.

So I think that’s just such a cool story of how even you turn down Fremont bank job and then Manal comes from, it’s just, it’s a small 

Margarete: world.

I know, yeah, it

Josh: Okay. So then you get the full-time position at Star One as a teller. So walk us through how many years ago? You’re not a day older than 29, so it can’t be more than

Margarete: Yeah, but no it was in 92. Over 30 years ago and yes, and at that time, obviously, the credit union [00:31:00] was much smaller. We were only like, 30, less, maybe 40 employees. And. There wasn’t a lot of movement. So I spent a lot of time and, and I would talk about that during our, the Star One new employee orientation.

I would create every new employee and give them a little history about Star One and also talk about my career paths. And the reason I would do that is because, even today, the younger generation wants to be promoted so quickly. They don’t have the patience. They just wanted to come in and get promoted right away.

And I would tell them about my stories, because there was no movement back then. I spent probably four, five, six years at the teller line. But, I was the best teller there was. I knew everything. And I acquired a lot of knowledge from other departments because I always would make a point to find out if a member that came to me at the teller window and had a question related to cards, I would make a point of trying to get the information to relate it back to him so I could learn from that.

So I did that. And so that’s why I [00:32:00] said I was the best teller that was, I had a knack for finding back then you didn’t have cash machines, everything was manual cash handling, a lot of outages in the evening people, tell us we’re out of short or over in cash and we always have to look for the outages and I was really good about that.

So thanks. And, and there was no opportunity to go anywhere else, and then when an opportunity did come up, and so I go back a little bit, so I was a teller, but then I became like a the senior teller, they relied a lot on me, to manage the, you couldn’t call it manage, because I wasn’t a manager, but I would oversee the teller line, and then they had a position come up at the time it was a supervisor, but it was a manager position and I applied for it and and I was, I was declined.

I call it declined. I was not given the opportunity. They thought they had somebody better. They actually went on the outside to hire somebody. And, and did it hurt? Yes, of course, because you want the job, you think you’re qualified for it. And, you were given that opportunity. [00:33:00] And so one of the things I was told back then at the time too, was that, oh, I didn’t have a degree.

So just, and I said, oh, you have everything, you have the qualities, you’re a good manager, leader, you have all the right traits, but you don’t have a degree. And really, at the time they really wanted managers to have a degree. And I said, okay, fine. And I was toying with that idea anyway, but I said, okay, fine.

If that’s what’s holding me back, I’m going to go back to school. I’m going to get that degree. And then the next time something comes up, hopefully I get it. And I did,

How old were your kids 

Josh: at the time?

Margarete: They were probably around 10, 10 and 12. Yeah,

Josh: Busy active time in life and.

Margarete: Yeah, and a lot of credit goes back to my husband who took care of them while I was going to school because there was no online learning twice a night, right?

I didn’t come home till 10: 30 or 11 o’clock because I went to school for four years, not five years. It took me five years to get my associates degree. in accounting. And then [00:34:00] I said, okay, I’m done. I can’t do it any more, and the reason I wanted to go to San Jose state. And then when I applied for it, they said, Oh, you need another year of transfer units.

And I said, you gotta be kidding me, right? I have, what did I do all this for? And I said, okay, I can’t do that any more. And then And then, I got a letter in the mail from University of Phoenix, right? And they say, Oh, you can get your bachelor’s degree in two years.

We have a program. And I go, okay, I put in five years. I can do another two, right? So I already invested five years in it. I can do another two. I couldn’t do another four, but I can do another two. And then what was appealing about that, you only met once a week and a lot of, so you could do a remote, right?

And I said, okay, I can do it. So I did do it. I got my bachelor’s degree in management. And in the meantime, there was another position came open again as a manager and I wasn’t selected. And I said, okay, fine. If I, I’m going to get that degree and if I don’t get selected then that must not be the right fit for me and Star One, right?

And the [00:35:00] main message I always would tell that to people, be patient just because you weren’t selected for a job the first time, just don’t throw in the towel. Don’t give up, work harder, try to do it again. And an opportunity may come up, right? Just don’t give up and say, Oh, I’m leaving. Because for one, if you had a really good organization, just don’t walk out.

And be patient. That’s one of the key words. You have to be patient. Things will happen eventually, but you have to be patient. Sometimes it happens sooner than later, but sometimes it takes a little longer. So anyway, on the third attempt, I got the job as a manager. And obviously I was happy and that’s really what I wanted out of my career.

I wanted to be a manager and that’s, became the manager. And I thought, Oh, this is great. I achieved my goal of being a manager. Took me a long time, but it was okay. I felt that the, the credit union. I was invested in the credit union and even if I wouldn’t have got the job, I wouldn’t have left because the credit union was still a [00:36:00] great place, a great culture, right?

We had a lot of good, positive things. So I wouldn’t just throw that away. So it finally worked out for me and I became a manager. 

Josh: Didn’t stop there. But, I want to add I was at one of the Pacific Northwest young credit union professionals CEO meetings. I want to say this was two years ago now, Margarete and a really similar piece of advice was given and another thing that is just always stuck with me.

And, it’s a really cool format where, typically they have anywhere from like 10 to 15 CEOs that come to this event. They each sit at a table with about 10 chairs around the table. And then all of the young credit union professionals are invited to come in and basically speed date the CEOs.

And they get 10 minutes to just ask the CEO questions. And then the CEOs all get up and rotate a table until you’ve gotten a chance to meet all the CEOs. The table I was sitting at one of the young professionals asked one of the CEOs a question and [00:37:00] it was, how do I advance my career and how do I get the next promotion?

And he gave a really similar answer to what you just gave. And I thought it was a really astute one. And he said, Quit trying to get the next promotion. If that’s what you’re so focused on, sometimes you actually lose focus on what you’re doing now and don’t look like the best candidate for the next level.

And he said, just be really good. Be the best in the role that you are in. And he said, one of two things will happen that will get noticed. And when the time is right and the opportunity is present, you’ll get that promotion.

Margarete: Yep.

Josh: Or won’t, and if it doesn’t, then you have a path to take, and it’s exactly what you were just talking about.

It’s okay. Is it because? I really wasn’t quite ready for this role or because quite frankly, there was a better [00:38:00] qualified candidate. And could I look to improve my bench strength to be prepared for that the next time it comes around. And if I truly believe in the organization that I’m at, then I’m going to stick through and give it another go type of thing. Or you have the realization either that time, or maybe, especially if it’s been multiple attempts, that maybe this is not the right organization for you. Or maybe there is quite frankly, a problem in leadership that is not recognizing the talent that they have in front of them. But that a lot of times this just, it takes time and being the absolute best you can possibly be in the role that you are in will get recognized.

And if it doesn’t get recognized, then that’s when you start looking at, is this the right organization for me? But I think that’s your exact story, right? Again, the spoiler alert, we gave your finishing title at Star One was not manager. So you had a few more steps along the way but It wasn’t like this perfectly gloriously easy path.

It [00:39:00] wasn’t like, I got hired and I said, Hey, you know what? I’d really like to be the EVP of ops. Could you just go ahead and put me in that role? And then it happened. It took a 30 plus year career to make that happen. Yeah.

Margarete: always did too. I always did. I said, okay, I’m going to do the best job I can. Not only because I want to get promoted, but for one, I really believe in what we’re doing and servicing our members.

And the more knowledge I have, the better I can serve our members. The less steps I have to, they have to go through to get the answers, if I can provide all the answers. answers, right? It’s a great service. So service was always extremely important. And yeah, and I would say, take pride in your job, right?

Don’t always belittle your job. Say, Oh, I’m just a teller. Oh, I’m just an Amazon. No, you are a teller. You are an Amazon, but you are important to the organization. Every job is important because without one of those key positions and teller is a key position, we wouldn’t be, we wouldn’t provide the service or we wouldn’t be in [00:40:00] existence.

So I always say, don’t ever belittle your job. Your job is important. And it’s also what you make out of that job. You can make it as little as you want it to be, or you can make it as much as you want it to be. To grow. And one of the things we always encourage everybody at Star One is to grow.

We don’t hold anybody back in learning. We want employees to learn. And I was a prime example. I always wanted to learn more, and I took every opportunity I could get to acquire the knowledge, right? Just talking with other coworkers, right? And trying to find a solution to a problem, you would listen to other conversations.

And that’s what I’m saying, sometimes too, being a good listener is good because you learn a lot, just by listening to other people. Talk to a member explaining a situation. And so yeah, always be the best that you can in your job and you’re right. So sometimes, in a smaller organization, management positions don’t come up that [00:41:00] frequently.

And especially if it’s a good organization and everybody’s happy, right. There’s no movement. And that’s really what happened, it’s, people have come and they stay. And yes, I have an option to go somewhere else but, is it enough? Is some people have to move up, it’s they, for different reasons, right?

But would I want to give up an organization? I have had employees that wanted to leave because they had a bad interaction with a manager and stuff. And I said, do not leave Star One because of one employee. Even if that’s your manager, you’re leaving something behind that you may regret later.

And that person that you had the interaction with may leave three months later and you left because of that person. And then they gone. And you left something behind. It’s, don’t do it. Don’t, if you like, the organization you work for, find a way to work with this person. And yeah, you have to interact and you have to be professional about it.

But don’t make a rash decision and just leave. Because, [00:42:00] oh, I don’t get along with this person. Because that person could leave and then you gave up a career, potentially, at a really good place. There’s a lot of those nuggets, but, the younger generation, they do want to.

All they see is the next step, right? And sometimes it’s the more you know at the level where you’re at and you build on that, the better you will be once that opportunity comes up, right? Anyway, And then, going back to my story, then that opportunity came up. We had a new CEO.

So Star One has always been very flat in management. We don’t have a lot of levels. And he created two EVP positions and then the. Two VPs, there were two VPs that were promoted into the EVP position that were newly created that opened up two VP positions and I got one of them. And that was in remote services.

And that’s how my career started, in remote [00:43:00] services. And remote services to us were the call center, web services. and card services. So anything where the member touched us remotely fell into remote services. And that’s where I kind of

Josh: And that’s actually an important detour fun fact that I think we should share too, is that Star One’s makeup and blueprint also lends to why quote unquote remote services was such an important element of Star One. Fun fact, Star One is you 10 billion, an asset mark with Star One.

Only 120, 130, 000 members, right? So you do the math on that one. It’s a little different than I think the industry average, but what’s also really interesting is how many branches does Star One have, Margarete?

Margarete: six.

Josh: Yeah, six branches, right? And I always love it. I think it’s hilarious. I, one of my favorite visits to any credit union has always to Star One’s headquarters, because if you go to Star [00:44:00] One’s headquarters, they’re right there in Sunnyvale and if you’ve got a good arm and a tennis ball, you can hit Google and Apple and Facebook and blah, blah, blah.

Who’s who of the tech world. And here’s little Star One just nestled right in with everybody. So you’re in a really interesting market and footprint. You have a really small branch presence when compared to assets and even compared to members. But it means that you end up having an extremely affluent and tech savvy membership base, right?

And that comes with a certain set of expectations for their credit union to provide services to them. So we’ll probably come back to that later, but I think just talking about Star One’s remote services and how that organization or that part of the organization really grew. That’s a pretty key fact to keep in mind.

 Now the organization has created these new layers. I also think that’s a cool shout out to Star One CEO, Gary. I think you would probably echo this far better than I ever would, but I think, Gary has been a big part of that culture that was [00:45:00] really built at Star One that created that opportunity for people to, to take chances, to take risks, to try new things, to explore and to really leverage their skill sets and put the right people in the right roles and then empower them.

I don’t know if you have any comment on that, but. 

Margarete: And actually in just to go back a step Gary was actually the VP of remote services when the EVP positions came open and he moved up into EVP of admin and finance and then and the other, the operations VP became the other EVP. So Gary was actually the first EVP at Star One.

And then and then the EVP of operations, just another side story. The EVP of operations left retired actually. And so of course I said, yeah, I’m going to apply for that job. Because why wouldn’t I love operations and all this stuff. And then I didn’t get the job on the first try either.

So I always talk about, things happen for a reason and they don’t always, because like you said, a lot of people think they look at [00:46:00] me. Oh, she had a smooth ride. No, I had a lot of disappointments, but I got over them and I tried to work through them. And actually Gary beat me out of it because he decided to go from EVP of finance to EVP of operations.

And that was fine. And then ultimately, when our then current CEO, Rick Haldeprand retired, Gary was promoted into the CEO. And when Gary was promoted to CEO, he promoted me. I applied again for EVP of Operations. And he gave me that opportunity. So it’s,

Josh: Gary saying that, I was number one in that role, but Margarete was number two. So when I left, I guess the only other number one would be Margarete. I’m just

Margarete: But we laugh at it sometimes that we had similar steps, the alignment and what we did. But, it goes back to, that, that. Just because you don’t get the job the first time, don’t give up, right? Just be happy and content in the job that you’re doing and you can still [00:47:00] contribute.

And if something else comes up and who knew that, this EVP of operations would retire at an earlier age than what we saw, right? You don’t know what’s happening in the future, so don’t make rash decisions. And sometimes it’s good to stick it out.

So

Josh: What I just love about this podcast, Margarete, is that it really gives me the opportunity to just talk to people and hear a lot of their backstory. And especially, we’ve always intended to make this the theme of today’s episode. But what I always find interesting was when you learn people’s backstories, you also start to have a lot of light bulb moments of, Oh, I got you.

That’s why they did this the way that they did. And what’s interesting for me, being on. Obviously the vendor side of the equation of a credit union and a vendor, sometimes we always wonder why certain decisions are made, why certain actions are taken, why certain strategic objectives are followed, why maybe one vendor is selected over another.

And I think, what 99 [00:48:00] percent of the time is the very tip of the iceberg. You just see the decision or you see maybe the

outcome, right? But a lot of times you don’t understand the depth of the story behind why did that person make the decision that they did or why did that organization?

Make the decision that they did, and that has a lot to do with the culture of the organization. And, even just at the kind of tip that it has to do with, is it the culture of the organization is the organization or the organizational head, i. e. the CEO, the board makes all the decisions.

And so therefore, what you’re seeing is a product of the culture of this organization is this person or this entity makes all the decisions or is it a culture of what at Star One where people are empowered to make some of those decisions and then you have, umpteen million layers of, people’s personal and professional backstories that lead to why did they make the decisions that they did?

And I think where I’m going with this is, we set this up talking [00:49:00] about just some of the ways you’ve approached life as a whole and just your incredible story of kind of resiliency and love with Tony and getting to this point and being able to look back on it all and say All of that going to Korea for a year and, two months apart while I’m in Germany and leaving my family, it was all worth it in the end.

But, sometimes in the heat of the moment it’s hard to visualize that end result of things. And that has had a really big impact on how you made decisions as a leader of the credit union, right? I would say I want you to talk about this, not me. But, because again, I’ve probably only seen a fraction of the amazing things that you did in your tenure at Star One.

But did a lot of very progressive things. You all pushed the boundary on a lot of things. You were the first to do a lot of things. And I know you will be the first one to correct me. If I said it was all you it was definitely, in a culture of the organization and other leaders like you, but you were a big part of a lot of those decisions, right?

And saying, Hey, you know what? We’re [00:50:00] going to take what may seem on paper, like the riskier decision. We may go with the less known vendor or the less validated product or the path less traveled, but you had a personal experience of doing that yourself and understanding how to face the challenges and obstacles along the way of a choice like that to make sure that you set up for a successful outcome.

Would you mind sharing with us just some of the experiences that you had at Star One in how you applied that kind of thought process and, your backstory to, how did you make decisions to help, lead the organization down an innovation path? 

Margarete: I had great mentors at Star One, right? And the culture of Star One, we actually have a really What I call an easy process of onboarding new vendors. It doesn’t have to go through several different layers of approval power. So basically a vice president at Star One has the, I call it, when it was, if you want to call it the power [00:51:00] or not, but it has the power to make decisions and the recommend a vendor and the vice president and his team actually is doing all the vetting, is doing all the inquiries and and brings it then to the easy, either the EVP or the CEO and saying, Hey, here’s a vendor we want to engage in.

We like what they’re offering and what do you think? And, basically making a case for them. And that’s really what. I was allowed to do so in remote services, and the technology was constantly changing. And, like you said we’re in the tech valley and our members expected technology and we wanted to provide that technology to members.

So we were constantly looking for how can we offer more features and more self service options because our footprint was so small, right? We relied on digital services and that was always important to start from the day I walked through the door, through this day and now it’s even more important than it was back then.

So we were always looking for it. And then of course we [00:52:00] had some vendors who, when you ask them, Oh, can we do this? No, you can’t. No, we can’t. Can we have that? No, we can’t. So there was a lot of stuff that we wanted and we were told no. And then, and we all know in the industry, sometimes you’re being handcuffed by your vendor, right?

You want to do things, but either they can’t do it or they don’t have the resources to do it or it’s not in there. long-term strategy and they won’t deviate. You run into that a lot. And so we had and there’s certain things that we felt were important. 1, fraud always has a big piece in, in, in the industry, right?

Trying to prevent fraud. We. We made a decision. It was Fred, who was previous web services manager and myself, f, who was the remote services VP. We talked to a company, it was Guardian Analytics, who were just starting out with two people building their little analysis And it came when FFIUC FFIUC said, you need to do additional [00:53:00] authentication and we said, okay. Yeah, we can do it But if the member gives out the information, it doesn’t stop anything, right? We have to protect the members from themselves. So Guardian Analytics has this tool that would provide, you know, the IP addresses of the behavior of the person logging in and gave us a lot more and it was two people pitching the product to us, right?

The CEO and he just hired a salesperson when we talked to him and the product was half baked, but when we saw it and, and especially Fred, my web services manager, we saw the potential. We said that can fix a lot of issues, right? So if a member gives out their login information and somebody logs in from Florida from a different IP address, and even though the member gave it out, it’s going to be an alert saying, Hey, this member normally always locks in from Sunnyvale.

All of a sudden you have to, a login from Florida, look at it. So anyway, we saw the potential. And so we actually worked with them and it ended up. We were the first [00:54:00] client. It was a great product. They grew into Guardian Analytics, became a successful company, and got acquired later by Nice Actimize, but because of their technology and looking back when you make those decisions, and of course, we were asked, I was asked, it’s okay, how many clients do they have?

Zero, right? With the first, what’s the ROI on this? There isn’t any. Cause nothing has been proven. So a lot of the questions that are being asked by the board, we had, we didn’t have that, right? All we had is this understanding that what they were offering could be a game changer in the industry and we saw it.

We believed in it. And so we got approval from, from obviously the, my boss and the CEO and the board to move forward with it and it was the right decision because you look back and it’s yeah, that was a game changer back then that wasn’t 20, 2010 or whenever, it was a [00:55:00] long time ago, but.

And then, but we didn’t have any, there was no security, right? Vendor management, right? They didn’t have anything. So we, lot of trust, it goes back to my having so much trust in my husband, right? The trust in the company, in that person, that they would do the right thing, right? So the relationship to me is so important in everything that we do.

Yes. And a relationship can make or break a vendor. All right. If you, the vendor may be really good and the products that they have are really good. But when you don’t have good relationships, it doesn’t do you any good. The relationship is so important in our business. And that’s where, maybe some people will say, Oh, you naive, you trust this person.

Yes. A lot of the stuff that we do in our business is trust, right? We trust to do the right thing. We trust that members do the right thing and we trust that our vendors do the right thing. And yes, it takes a certain, and talking to [00:56:00] people, get in the background, like you said when you talk to people, you get to know them, you get to feel for them.

And, sometimes you can tell, oh, this is not really, they’re not really being, totally sincere, or there’s a lot of fluff and there’s nothing really beneath it. So you can pick up with that. And part of it, I think it’s experience too, So we had this trust and this confidence in this person and the product, and it turned out to be right.

The other first was a mobile deposit. We worked back then it was in center. It was a small company that actually was close to us who was dabbling in the mobile deposit. And, they asked us if we wanted to beta test it and the same thing. We said, yes, we, we do, because we felt that this was the right product.

And it turned out to be the same way, and Zender became You know this big company and once again, I hate to say it. It got sold. I hope Tyfone never gets sold. So I’m just putting my plug in. Don’t do it. It

Josh: Don’t do it.

Margarete: Yeah. [00:57:00] Don’t do it. Okay. But even back then, people’s questions were like, why would she do that?

Why do you want to be the first? And I don’t want to be the first. At every product because there’s a lot of resources that go in and helping a vendor build that product, right? Because it is a partnership. There’s a lot of resources go in , but we felt it was worthwhile. I was willing to, one of the things and my staff, they know it’s don’t talk to Margarete because she always will say yes.

Do you want to, Oh, here’s this thing. Should we do it? I go, yeah, of course we will. Because it’s, yes, we should, yeah, we’re going to do this. So anyway and and and you hope it works out, right? But it goes back to, it’s not just hope it’s a trust in the people that are working on the project.

It’s a product in itself, the potential that it can have if it’s done right. And it was successful again. And so we had a couple of those that, that we were the first and we had to, there was nothing you could, you can you could back [00:58:00] it up with except okay, I believe in the product and I believe in the people and have trust in the people that they develop it and it’s going to be good for strong one.

And its members, right? And not every financial institution can work like that. They want the ROI. They want, and sometimes, I would say the return on investment, you can manipulate any model and make it look like the way you want it to look like, so to have an ROI model to me is a lot of times. I don’t pay as much attention to it because you can manipulate it to make it look good. And reality could be so different. But it’s the relationship you have with the vendor, with the people that build it, and that kind of goes back to Tyfone as well, right? My first relationship with Tyfone, talking to Siva, who came to Star One way back, mobile banking vendor had maybe one client, right?

But, talking to him, telling him what our pain points were, [00:59:00] what we wanted out of a product. And we were aligned, right? We were aligned. He wanted the same thing. He wanted to provide the same thing, the flexibility, the additional features and functionality. He had that bigger vision. And, we had that mutual respect and trust that You know, that he would deliver, his team would deliver and that we could benefit from that.

And and yes, it’s, why don’t you go with all the known vendors, with whoever they were, Claremail and, Digital Insight, or, all the other vendors that were out in the industry, but none of them would provide the flexibilities that we were looking for about, offering a digital function and features in mobile banking and Tyfone, who had at that time

API into XP2 where a lot of the others didn’t was to me was the key point in, in, in saying, okay, with the API. Tyfone was able to do, [01:00:00] deliver functionality that others couldn’t. And it was built on trust, believe in that other person, and respect. And, we built Tyfone and Star One. We built this long term relationship based on that.

It wasn’t about money, funds, or background. SaaS 70s and all the vendor management tools, it was just the trust and respect with that person that we felt, that they could deliver and Tyfone at the time, they had the security features, right?

They had a lot of security not so much in the financial industry, but in other areas. And, but it. We felt that they could deliver and it goes back, there’s a certain trust element. Without trust, you wouldn’t engage in something like that, right? So it’s a trust in that person that they would deliver.

And it was a mutual trust in each other that we would work well together. And we did.

Josh: You know I think I’m just hearing you talk about the different firsts that you’ve done at Star One and you just highlighted that you were [01:01:00] one of the first to do anything, you were the first to do anything with a guardian analytics and one of the first credit unions in the country to do anything with real-time risk-based step up, scoring and authentication.

You were one of the first credit unions in the country to do anything with incentive and remote deposit capture wasn’t Star One, like DI’s first client. You were one of the first credit unions to do digital banking, even as a whole. You were one of the first credit unions to do a Zelle and one of the first and only to do direct integration to Zelle.

Didn’t you send like the first international crypto transaction or something silly like that too?

Margarete: Yes. Yes,

Josh: number of firsts goes on. You sent the very first transaction ever on the FedNow network. The list of Star One firsts is a little ridiculous. I have to laugh. I would, I don’t know if you’ll ever admit this out loud, but there’s a part of me that feels like you’re always a little bit bummed that you weren’t Tyfones first, you were second or third, but

Margarete: I know.

Josh: [01:02:00] but

Margarete: digital.

Josh: Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, you can have that. But just hearing you talk about all of that and all those different firsts that you were able to accomplish and just, again, applying this back, it was interesting as you were talking, I was thinking like, what would it have been like if you had given Tony an RFP to marry you?

And it had just been a set of check mark the boxes and it was like, how much is in your bank account? That may have been, may or may not have been a plus or a minus. Where do you live? Oh gosh, the other side of the world. That’s, you don’t check and mark that box. If you had just gone down an RFP check, mark the box, like would you have married Tony?

And 

Margarete: Yeah.

Josh: But to your point, it was built on the relationship. It was built on trust, right? And the two of you built out all the check mark the boxes through that relationship, right? Then you became career successful. Then you had a beautiful family and amazing kids and all of these things that came out of that, like you built the check mark the boxes of the RFP because you started it on [01:03:00] that solid foundation of the relationship and the trust.

And I think it’s very apparent that you’ve taken a very similar approach in how you’ve looked at. making decisions for the credit union is Hey, maybe on paper on the RFP, which is still important, right? Like you can’t go out willy-nilly and just pick a vendor and be like, Oh yeah.

These guardian analytics guys, they don’t have a product. They don’t have any customers. We’re just not going to do anything. They sold us a great song and dance. We’re going to sign up. And then, Oh goodness, like they’re, they can’t deliver on any of this. Like you still had to do some research.

You still had to do some check, mark the boxes to validate, Hey, do they have a viable product? Do they actually know what they’re doing and are able to integrate to the systems that we need them to integrate to? Do they have the foundational elements that we need to stand on? Am I going to be, smacked on the hand from a regulator if I make this decision or can I back that up with our due diligence?

And so those things are still important. But to your point, like ultimately what made that such a successful relationship for Star One was that it was built on [01:04:00] that foundation of trust and partnership of, Hey, we’re going to go with this road together because we understand we have, non mutually exclusive objectives together.

Margarete: No, and that’s true. We invented the product. We tested it. We tried to, but the, But the initial engagement is based on trust, and then once you say, okay, we want to move forward. And before we roll it out to our members, we’re going to make sure it’s working, but to engage that relationship, 90 percent was trust, right?

And we saw, I remember, the Guardian analytics guy, coming over and the CEO who was actually also the coder, he would make, he would bring his laptop and he would make changes on the fly talking with Fred saying, okay, this doesn’t work. We need to do something different.

And he would code it right then and there. And. And to make those changes based on what we were telling him. And it was just amazing. That, takes two parties, it, I can’t take all the credit for it [01:05:00] because the vendor had to do a lot.

And what’s the amazing part of it in all those instances, which, Guardian and Tyfone and Incenta, they listened to us too, right? They listened to us. They just didn’t ignore us and saying, Oh, no, you don’t know. Star One, who are you? Me, non tech operations person. What do I know about coding?

Nothing. But I know our members, I know what their expectation is. I know how I want to protect our numbers. And so we know, we know how members think and feel and what they expect, and then, we tell that to the vendor and then the vendor tries to build a product that meets the expectation.

So it’s truly a real partnership built on trust. Because I couldn’t have done it without their trust and willingness to listen to us and saying, and you’ve been part of some of the conversation where, we go back and forth a little bit because, we think it’s better [01:06:00] this way and Tyfone thinks it’s better this way and then we talk it out and then we come to an agreement and saying, oh, okay, we give a little bit.

Yeah, you’re right. Oh, no, you were right, Star One. No, Tyfone, you were right. It’s a collaboration. There’s no right or wrong. There’s always about trying to make it better. Or trying to build something that works for and for everybody and everything that we’ve done. Yes, the number one priority was always Star One and I looked out for Star One, but I always looked at it to how will it work for us at credit unions, right?

Yes, I worked for Star One and that was my primary, but I always in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, if we do this, How will that work for other credit unions, right? I want other credit unions to have the same thing. I don’t want it just to be us. I want to share. So I want to share all that knowledge, right?

I want all the credit unions to have that to make them better to protect the members, right? We’re not hiding anything. We want to share. We want everybody to know what’s, what we’re doing or what we’ve [01:07:00] done to help them and share our knowledge. experiences, our knowledge.

And then, based on that, they can take what they want to take. And do what they want to do. I’m not telling anybody what they need to do, but let’s share what we have done and what we, how we’re doing it. And then you can take it from there and make it your own. 

Josh: I, I think that’s one of the things I’ve always really respected about the Star One team is every time I’ve witnessed an opportunity for you all to to have a fork in the road of whether this is going to be something you would do collaboratively for the betterment of the industry or not, 100 percent of the time, 100 percent of the time I’ve witnessed you take that path down the road.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referenced. When we talk about credit unions as a whole getting larger starting to have more national presence, starting to, look a lot more like a traditional banking type of institution. And I, in all fairness, that gets very difficult at scale, right?

Because a lot of times what, credit unions differentiate on, it’s not just the not [01:08:00] for profit status. It’s, the community involvement, the member ownership, and the ability to really put the focus on the members and to really personalize the service. Those things get very difficult at scale, right?

But I think Star One has just done such a phenomenal job of being an example of a credit union that like. Eat, sleeps, breathes, the credit union ethos of people helping people even at, the size and scale that Star One is today. When you were talking about how you’re, you it’s a two sided coin, right?

With the vendors. Is it also a part of, giving vendors the opportunity to shine and the right ones kind of shine, like your example with the guardian analytics folks, if you had given them the opportunity to shine and said, Hey, look, we’re going to give you a chance.

Like big old Star One credit union is going to give you guys with zero referenceable customers a chance. They could have blown it, right? But they didn’t. stepped up to the plate. They, came sat down at your offices, let the, [01:09:00] let you watch them work, worked collaboratively with you.

As you look to add, vendors throughout your career. What were some of the ways that you helped to identify some of those less tangible non check mark the box RFP type of, objectives you were looking to solve for in vendor selection partnership process. Like how did you evaluate the touchy feely stuff?

Like, how did you evaluate the trust versus is this just a really good salesperson, selling me a song and a dance,

Margarete: Yeah. Good question. I honestly, sometimes I don’t know, except, when I look back on all the relationships I’m telling you, it is the trust in the person and I can spot somebody that’s just trying to sell me something without, it is, if it’s intuition I don’t know, but it’s not just me.

I wasn’t always a sole person that make this decision, right? I had my team, my managers, and we all would sit down and we would talk about it. But [01:10:00] it’s also, even with, Guardian Analytics who was at the time was, so new and what they would, what they were doing and the behavioral aspect on it, that not just, the transaction monitoring, but actually the behavioral aspect of a member logging in was so new, but it all made sense to us.

And so I don’t have

Josh: you don’t have a crystal ball, Margarete. What?

Margarete: No, I don’t. And, and other people probably would have shy, would have said no. I and, and like I said before, it takes work. So you have to involve, you have to involve yourself and you have to constantly have the conversations, right?

To help build the product, to test it, to, to make sure it’s working the way it is supposed to be working. And there’s a lot of resources that is being spent, in credit unions and us included. We don’t have a lot of extra employees. The employees are doing it on top of their regular job and spending extra hours testing beta testing a product.

But it’s part of their commitment [01:11:00] to Star One and to the members that they are doing it right because they can see it too. They can see the benefit. And I guess that’s what it is. You look at a product and yes, it’s not fully baked, but you can see the benefit. You can see the benefit, the impact it can have in the end.

If it works the way it’s supposed to work, you can see that And I think that’s, and it happens that it worked out and we were successful. There are sometimes hurdles in the road. It’s not always, this, everything’s wonderful and great.

They are, but you, but you can’t, you work through them. You can’t just throw it and say, Oh my God, we had one big problem. Not forget about it. We’re not going to do anything else. So it’s that commitment to that relationship and to work through the hurdles, right? We had hurdles, right?

Our, first online banking the day this wasn’t as smooth as we wanted it to be, but you just don’t throw in the towel. You work through it and you got to give the vendor an opportunity to fix [01:12:00] the problem. And so part of it is also, any technology, we’ll all get frustrated when something isn’t working, but you got to give the technology provider an opportunity to fix it.

To make it right. And not just say, Oh, forget it. We’re not going to do anything else because that was such a bad experience. We’re never going to do that again, but it’s, it goes back to some of it I call common sense, but trust, relationship, commitment, and believing in the product.

And the believing in the product and in the people who develop it that they can do it. Everything technology isn’t smooth, right? We know, every technology company has issues. It’s not it’s out in the world and, you just have to work through it and and not give up, I guess that’s the other thing and not give up.

Have we. Have we sunsetted some products or something that we, that didn’t work out, work as expected? Yes, we have. All right, so we’re not but but most of the time we’re trying to make it work, right? We’re trying to give the [01:13:00] time, work with the vendor, trying to improve the product or try to make it the way it’s supposed to work.

But there is no there’s no clear rules. That I can say this and this that you need to do it gives, it’s a lot, you’re into action, you’re, yeah I don’t know, it’s, even with FedNow FedNow did not only involve Tyfone, it also involved Federal Reserve, and it’s the same thing, we couldn’t have done it without Tyfone or Federal Reserve, we needed it all parties to come to the table, right?

Tyfone couldn’t have done it on their own. Federal Reserve couldn’t have done it on their own. We needed each other, all three of us, we needed each other to make it work. And we had this collaborative, really great environment, respect for each other. And we worked through some of the issues, right? As we were trying to beta test and, working through the product.

And in the end, we got a wonderful product. But, and we were the first. That’s the other [01:14:00] send and receive, right? There’s still a lot of financial institutions that don’t do send. They only receive and we did it from day one because we felt if everybody just does receive, it’s not going to work.

Somebody has to send in order for it to be received, right?

You don’t 

Josh: have a baseball game if nobody’s got a ball.

Margarete: Yeah. And and then once again, we had the trust and confidence in Tyfone about the fraud features, right? How do we protect and prevent fraud in, in, in FedNow knowing what we know about Zelle and what we’ve seen, how can we reduce that in FedNow?

And so common goals, and the willingness to make it a good product on all. And a lot of work that goes into it. And some, don’t have the time to do that. They say, no, I’d rather not. I’ll wait till it’s out and it’s baked. And that’s okay too, but, I personally like to be sometimes that experiment. I love doing something the first, right? I [01:15:00] think there’s a lot of reward, very rewarding to me to be able to work with somebody to create something that would benefit our members in such a way. So

Josh: I want to come, I want to come back to that point and again, keep picking on the Guardian Analytics example of that. But one of the other things that you said that kind of stood out is, I think, giving vendors an opportunity on both sides, right? Vendors and credit unions giving each other the opportunity to see how they respond in the less than positive situations is also a really big indicator, right?

Like you said, no, no technology is perfect. I’m sorry. I would love to be able to sit here and tell you that that we’re perfect and that our technology is a hundred percent perfect. You all wouldn’t know I was lying. I’m not even going to try like nobody is perfect. If AWS could have issues, anybody can have issues.

Okay, they got more money and people than anybody else. Nobody’s perfect. The question is, how do you respond in those moments of imperfection? They tell a lot about the character of the [01:16:00] organization that you’re working with. The expectation going into it, that it’s going to be perfect is wrong.

But it’s, hey, am I picking the right people again to your point based on the relationship and the trust that I have with them that when, not if, when something goes wrong, I’m going to be in a sticky situation with the people I want to be in a sticky situation with that I know that I can trust. And I want to give a shout out to somebody that I think and the two of you think very similarly, but Casey Murray from Numerica Credit Union, she made a similar comment, drawing back to some of her personal, Life too.

And Casey, I apologize if I get this a little bit wrong, but I think I get the gist of it. But, she made a comment once about how Her husband’s named Scott and she was like, is Scott perfect? No, she’s Scott pissed me off. Yeah. Everyone’s pisses me off. Like it is what it is.

She goes, but I always remember that I married Scott because I knew that our life was not going to be perfect. And there was going to be times where we were going to be in the trenches and I [01:17:00] married Scott because I wanted to be in the trenches with him and no one else. Like when I had to be in a fight for something with I wanted it to be alongside him.

Because I trust him, but I believe in him. And because I know that we both have each other’s best interests at heart. And very similarly to what you were talking about with how you view vendor relationships, how you and Tony think, look, it’s not going to be perfect.

We’re going to go through challenges and tribulations, I’m making the choice to be with, whatever this vendor, this credit union, this person, because there’s no one else I’d rather be in the trenches with them than them. Because I trust that they’re going to do the right thing in that.

And that’s, there’s a lot of value and there’s a lot of power in that. But to your point, like there, there’s no magic crystal ball to be able to see Hey, when things go south, is this vendor going to keep doing all these wonderful rosy things they’re telling me in the sales presentation? Are they going to run with their tails behind their legs and stop answering the phones?

Margarete: Yeah.

Josh: But so I wanted to go back to what you were talking about with [01:18:00] the Guardian analytics thing, too. I think that’s also such a fascinating example. Obviously I don’t think that it’s this extreme, but anybody who knows me well enough to know knows that I like to talk in extremes cause it makes my point.

Let’s say you weren’t Guardian Analytics first customer. You know what? So many times vendors here is I’m not willing to be your first customer. You know what? If nobody is willing to be there first, simply for I get it that if somebody’s, selling snake oil and nobody wants to be there first, like good, validate that they should get the heck out of here.

But let’s say we’ve got a really good product and a really good team. And something that could become something really cool. But just from the standpoint that you don’t want to be first, if everyone tells that vendor that, and they ultimately just fold up, we miss an opportunity, right? So if everyone had told guardian analytics, no, we’re not willing to be first.

If there was never a Star One that was willing to be first, it was willing to stick their neck out for them. Quite [01:19:00] frankly, the market may be missing arguably one of the most impressive real time risk scoring and analytics products on the market. Like it may not exist but because somebody took a chance, it does.

And I’m not saying that’s a, a black and white, like you have to take a risk on everything because everything’s going to turn into a unicorn and be the best thing ever. But there is the flip side to not taking the risks sometimes leads to not having a shot at the opportunity that risk had associated to it too.

Margarete: Yeah. Everybody talks about innovation and being innovative and the only way you can be innovative is by taking a risk, right? Innovation is part of risk. You have to be willing and not always. And sometimes it doesn’t work out. So the question is how do let’s say you go with a vendor and they have a product and you, it doesn’t work out right.

And Also, you have to be able to say at what point in time to say, no, okay, we’re not going [01:20:00] to prolong this, right? This needs to end because it’s not going to work, right? There’s the flip side to that. Luckily, someone, we haven’t had that many of them. I can’t think of anything right now, but but if it’s not a good product and doesn’t provide value to our members, then why have it?

Then it’s forget it. One of the products, it still hasn’t been resolved, right? Everybody wants to know how to do switch checking accounts, right? With bill pay and the automatic ACH, nobody wants to change checking accounts because everything is tied to checking accounts and to make the switch from one financial institution to the other.

It’s a lot of work, right? And there were toolkits being sold. Oh, we can switch kits, right? Oh, we can help, help with a member changing their bill pay or the automatic payments from Wells Fargo to Star One, let’s say. No, nobody has that. It’s still a manual process. It’s still trying to identify, right?

It’s nothing is out there [01:21:00] yet that allows, that to happen. And we had one and it was horrible. I have to admit, we thought it was going to be good. And we said, Oh, maybe, members would, it wasn’t a good product. It was a lot, it was still a lot of manual processes. And in the end we called it quits.

We gave, we, we had it, it died. We tried to revive it one more time and see what happens. And then we said, forget it. So sometimes you have to also let it go when it’s not A product that works the way you envisioned it. And so somebody can always, that’s a failure. You can call it a failure, but I look at it.

It wasn’t, didn’t bring value to our members. So why pay somebody, pay a vendor for a product that doesn’t provide value to our members. So you call it quits, and saying, okay, it didn’t work. But we tried. So sometimes it’s smaller, it’s on a smaller scale, but but also sometimes you just say it’s not working and let’s can it and see maybe something will come up in the future that is better.

But yeah, but that’s still [01:22:00] one problem that hasn’t been solved yet. In the industry.

Josh: so if anybody’s listening, Margarete’s got a product pitch you Margarete though that’s that’s such a good callback to what you were talking about earlier too, about just, like your attempts to get promoted to a manager, right? Just because one attempt was quote unquote seen as a failure.

It didn’t keep you from, continuing to try. And I think that’s a really delicate balance to maintain within, a heavily rate regulated industry like financial services. But, just because you had a failure with a product for that, should that necessarily influence I don’t know the timing of these events, Margarete, but let’s say you’re this switch kit that you were looking at was a failure.

And then the very next vendor you evaluated was Guardian Analytics, for example. And you were like, no, you know what? We had one failure this month. We’re good. We’re not doing it again. We’re risk averse now. Then you would have missed out on an opportunity. But it didn’t having [01:23:00] certain, quote unquote failures didn’t impede Star One’s desire to still try and push the envelope.

It was just data points for you.

Margarete: And you can’t let one failure rule your future life, right? You have to get over it and you have to say, just because that didn’t work doesn’t mean another product doesn’t, that’s such being short sighted to me, right? You constantly, you look at the positive and then, obviously in everything we do, there’s no guarantee that in the end all will work, but it goes back.

Yeah. It’s the same kind of what I was saying for it’s a trust in the confidence in the vendor that they will manage. , even marriage, everybody gets married for life, right? You get married and you think it’s going to last a lifetime. It doesn’t. There’s a lot of people that get divorced, right?

But nobody gets married and says, I’m going to get a divorce five years later. No, they get married and hoping that it’ll be for lifetime. And then things [01:24:00] happen and it doesn’t work out and they get divorced. But that’s not. That’s not how you started, so it has things happen and it has an impact on it But that doesn’t mean, you should have never got married or you shouldn’t I don’t know if it’s a good example or not so so every relationship you engage and you hope for success and you pray that most of time it is success.

And yes, you will have a few that aren’t successful, but that doesn’t mean you made a bad decision sometimes too, right? It’s going back to all the, to the decision making. It doesn’t mean because you had a failure or something that, Oh, we’re not, we’re never going to listen to Margarete again, right?

Cause she flunked, that was a bad experience and now we’re going to be over cautious and not let him, but the whole kind of goes back. You have to, failures are okay. And you have to be, woman or man enough to say, it didn’t work out. We’re gonna pull the plug, but that doesn’t mean we’re gone.

We don’t try something else, right? Or we’re not looking for something else. We’re just [01:25:00] part of it. Chuck it to experience. But of course, let’s say if every decision I make, it turns up into failure obviously, then there’s a problem

Josh: Yeah, you’re common denominator here. Sorry. Yeah.

Margarete: Yeah. So I can’t say that it’s, it’s okay to have a failure after failure.

No, it’s not. But just because of one failure, don’t, don’t stop it from doing another innovative, project, right? It’s because you, I don’t know, maybe I’m a, such an optimist that I always think it’s always going to be, it’s, oh, this is going to be better, right?

Are we going to make it better? We learned from our experience. We’re not going to let that happen again because we learned from that. Negative experience. We now know maybe what to do next, the next time better. Yeah, I don’t have, I guess I don’t have a fear of failure when I go into projects.

I am excited about the potential and how it would improve our members’ lives, that, that gives me all this energy and, hope and then you work really hard with that vendor to make [01:26:00] it happen. And when you have that commitment on both ends, I think most of the time it would work. It works sometimes that, that switch kit, we had recommendation to the vendors to make it nicer, more user friendly.

Didn’t want to do it because Don’t ask me why but So it’s it’s half of it is that relationship between the two parties and if they work well together It’s going to be successful if they don’t work well to get together then it impedes the success And I think key is The working together is the key in making something successful.

Josh: I think you’ve alluded to a few times too, that like work is one of the key words in there. Like you have to work at this, right? Again, you, I’ve drawn lots of parallels back throughout, but like you look at, you’re in Tony’s journey. There was a lot of work involved in that sucker that was not just hey We took the [01:27:00] easy out like we just did the easy thing right like you put in a lot of freaking work

Margarete: Yeah.

Josh: you look at I don’t know you know I feel like I had this realization I feel like I maybe have had this as a part of my DNA for a while, but it like really got solidified when I became a parent.

I look at being a parent is by far the single most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. And especially if you know the stage that I am in with a three-year-old and a five-month-old, it is really challenging and therefore it is by far the single most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life.

But it doesn’t come without work. And I really feel like I’m willing to argue the point that nothing good in life comes easily. If it’s really going to have a lot of value to it, if it’s going to really make a big impact, it’s probably going to involve a lot of work. And if you’re looking to just say, ah, you know what?

XYZ [01:28:00] vendor, they might take a little bit more work, right? It might even just be a little bit more work to get them, sold within the internal workings of the organization because they’re, have zero clients or whatever it may be, wherever the work may be involved. It’s a really good chance that putting in the work is going to lead to a more successful outcome than just taking the easy path.

Margarete: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah there, there is, there’s a lot of work and we, yeah we have another product, it’s with Scalding Analytics, but it’s the evidence lake is there an anti money laundering platform, and it’s, we were the beta for that. They had a lot of challenges with our core provider, right?

A lot of coding to make sure that all the transactions show up, all the roles. I know the staff probably pretty curses me in the back of the heads that I said, yes, let’s do this. Because it’s been, I think it’s finally, working a hundred percent, but I swear to God, it’s like a three or four year product.

We didn’t think, [01:29:00] we thought it was going to take a year. It took us three or four years to work through all the issues. And it’s, and I can’t even blame them for it. It’s because our core is so difficult the way they have it set up that it, it made it a really long drawn out project, but in the end, To me, it’s still it’s evidently it’s in the cloud, right?

They are they are not just the hard rules. There’s a lot of AI in it, right? That can analyze the transaction. The potential of that product to me worth all the pain for the last 3 years that staff had to go through to make it work right in the end, long term for someone for the future.

It’s going to be great. But the staff had to work too. systems simultaneously for those time because they couldn’t rely on one because it wasn’t beta, right? It was, But, anybody else probably would have thrown in the towel. [01:30:00] And I said, no, I know sometimes they wanted to give up staff, right?

I’m not doing the work, they were doing the work. And and it’s no we, we committed to this. I can see the potential of the product. If we give up now, We just lost two years, so let’s go through it and go with it and make it work. And I think when I retired, I think we were just at the point, I think, where we finally.

Had it all figured out, right? But it’s a great example that it is a lot of work. It’s a lot of resources and I’m, like I said, I don’t know how many people would have stuck with it, but I see the potential of the product and I said, no, that’s where we need to be. But It’s not all smooth rides.

There’s a lot of work and, a lot of hiccups. And so that’s just one example that, that, that wasn’t but I can see the potential of the product in the future, right? I can see how much better it will be than the current product we have, but it needs to work. And that is. [01:31:00] with compliance and the regulator, it has to work right.

You can say, Oh, forget it. If they don’t catch a transaction that should have been reported. No. It has to catch everything. So it was painful, but I think we’re finally there and yeah, probably a lot of people would have given up and saying, we’re done with this so much resources. We don’t step up for projects, we don’t step up even for now, two year project. We didn’t step up for it. It’s like existing people are doing the job and I commend, Star One and the team and the employees that are committed to make Star One better or provide services to our members to help with their financial transactions.

And but it’s not always smooth sailing. No.

Josh: I think that’s a hard it’s a hard like process to identify as you’re going through it. Is this one of those ones we keep pushing through and we’ve got to take the time and put the work in versus when do you pull the plug? And I

Margarete: Trust me, it would have been easy to say, let’s [01:32:00] stop it and just stay with the existing vendor.

Josh: Yeah.

Margarete: But that’s not, I never takes the easy road. I never takes the easy way out because that’s not always the right thing to do. But it would have been so simple just to say, you know what, forget it.

Let’s just move forward and stay with the vendor because, but that’s not who I am and it’s no, and it, I don’t take the easy road out and we know it’s work and we need to finish it. But it’s,

Josh: So the heck are you going to do in retirement, Margarete?

Margarete: I don’t know, I know, that’s the excitement I’m going to miss, right? The excitement of being part of a new product or project. But, at the same time, we do, we love outdoors. We have a lot of things set up. We just had a grandchild. He’s a year old. We have dogs.

We’re outdoors people. We have a lot we can do. And I think I can feel my time. I don’t think I’m going to be, but I will miss it. I won’t say I won’t miss it because I will miss but not enough to say I’m going to come back. No. Yeah.

Josh: not enough come back out of retirement, Gary. Just [01:33:00] FYI.

Margarete: And at one point, you have to let go and you have to say it’s enough because I always said, I’m not going to work till I’m 70.

There’s no need. I want to enjoy, my time with my husband and with my kids. And that gives us, do the things we want to do. And yeah, but I think that’s good. I think, like you said earlier Minal is great. She took, my job. Star One is in great hands. We have great people.

So I’m not worried about Star One, and I think I’m going to be just fine, because yeah, we have a lot of interests and there’s a lot of things that we’re doing, but I deny that every once in a while I will go, it’s I wonder how it’s going now.

Josh: wonder how it’s going.

Margarete: Yeah.

Josh: And Marcel gave you like 400 different little activities to keep busy over the next 600 years

Margarete: Yes.

Josh: I think you’re set. Margarete, I don’t want this podcast to end. I just, I could talk you all day every day. You’re retired. I gotta let you get back to, a glass of wine in the middle of the day.

Although you probably should just doing that the whole time for this podcast. [01:34:00] But for I gotta ask, we’ve got probably close to two hours of content of you imparting even still just yet a fraction of your wisdom and experience on us. But do you have any parting thoughts for if you’re a leader at a credit union really looking to know, evolve your credit union and really maintain relevancy in a really rapidly changing and heavily digital world.

Like what would be your one piece of advice, Margarete? Yeah.

Margarete: Listen to your management. It’s notjust one person that knows it all, right? I think there’s a lot of Give empower your people to make the decisions. I think that’s you wouldn’t put you don’t put people in a senior level position if you don’t think they can do the job, but let them also do the job, empower them, let them run with it.

Don’t put a lot of roadblocks in their way. Because I think that’s really what’s what’s and, from [01:35:00] my experience, it has worked well for us and for me, if you have so many layers and it takes a year to get a project through all the different layers of approvals, a year later, it’s too late.

Margarete Mucker: Sometimes you have to make a decision quick and fast. You cannot wait, six months or you miss the boat. So sometimes it’s allow your, your senior management to make decisions or to engage in something and not let the process stop them. From doing for moving forward with something because there’s so many layers of approvals.

And I know in other, financial institutions, there’s 10 different layers that a project has to go through before it gets approved. Or if it’s not in the budget, you can’t do it. So that’s the other things that, you know when you budget for something, you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to know what happens the next year.

Margarete: You don’t know what happens the next year. Something comes up and. And just because you didn’t budget for it, you can’t do it now, which, it’s wrong. So allow [01:36:00] for things that happens that come up and be able do, spend the money for it. We have a process in place.

Yeah, we have a budget. We’ve tried to stick to our budget, but if something comes up, we can ask the board for additional funds during the year. If something comes up and we need it, right? So it’s not being so rigid, but being having that flexibility. And I think that’s what it really is. It’s flexibility in in, in trying to.

If you see you go, we love to go to conferences. And the reason we go to conferences is to see the new things that are out there and exciting things or potential upcoming things. And, and if I come back and I say, I want to do this, and then, I got to wait a year or two years to go through an approval process.

Oh, it’s not in the budget. How much are your members going to miss out while you’re waiting for an approval, to go through so having a little bit more flexibility in in, in budgeting if it’s something comes up that is innovative and you really think you should do it.

You want it and you need to have it to be [01:37:00] able to move forward with it and not let a process stop you. I think sometimes that process that some financial institutions have to go through. is, stops a lot of innovation because they just won’t, they don’t allow for it. Be having the flexibility and a process in place that kind of can, when I say bypass the process, but have an alternate way of getting approval for something quickly, if you think it’s worthwhile to do 

Josh: so flexibility, empowerment with accountability, and then Take chances and take chances built on trust and relationships that you really believe are going to see through the future. Is that

Margarete: Yeah. that’s, yeah, that’s what I say. And, and not everybody can do it and not everybody has the, I don’t know the ability to, to, I don’t know to trust somebody or to [01:38:00] understand is this for real or not, right? But if you feel you have that talent or knowledge or whatever it is, then, move forward, right?

Because it can bring a lot of good things, and and like you said, somebody has to be the first sometimes and can’t always be Star One. No, I’m just kidding. But, we all, it’s too much, right? There’s so many new things coming out and. So it’s nice to have other Canadians be the first and then we can be the followers, right?

Which is great. So divide, divide that pot, so we can all benefit from it. 

Josh: Collaboration. The superpower of community financial institutions. That’s for

Margarete I usually end with the same two questions of, what are you doing to stay up to date on what’s happening in the industry and where can people find you to connect with you? But I’m going to answer that for you.

She’s not reading anything other than what she wants to, and you can’t find cause she’s in the cabin and she’s retired. Margarete, I just, I, like I said, I almost don’t want this podcast to end. I want to keep you all day, but I can’t be [01:39:00] selfish. It’s just been such an honor and a pleasure to have had the opportunity to have had you brought into my life as somebody that I have really looked up to and respected all through, a quote unquote professional relationship.

And I feel like I got so much more than just a customer vendor relationship out of that. I got somebody that I really, truly consider a friend. That has had, as I’ve said multiple times, a really profound impact on my life, and I’ve taken a lot from you and I just, I hope you know how much that has meant to me and how much I’ve appreciated you.

And we are very honored to have had you as a part of a very long and impressive career in this industry. So thank you for taking time out of your retirement day, no less to come and be a guest on the podcast.

Margarete: all right, Josh, appreciate it, and yeah, thank you for having me, and I hope people find it interesting the story,

Josh: If they don’t, there’s something That’s [01:40:00] all I have to say.

Margarete: okay, all right, thanks a lot, all right, bye.