FORT KENT, Maine — Acadia Federal Credit Union has announced an internal reorganization that better aligns management with its strategic plan, while emphasizing building relationships with staff, members and the communities they serve.
This reorganization caps over a year of significant growth, with the addition of thousands of new members after a 2017 merger with Eastern Maine Medical Center FCU, combined with continued growth throughout the institution and an expanding geographic footprint.
“We knew it was time to position ourselves to meet the changing demands of our credit union,” said David Desjardins, Acadia president/CEO. “The growth is exciting, but we need to manage that growth responsibly. We need to be adequately staffed, with the right people in the right positions, and make some enhancements to our departments and processes.”
He added, “Part of our approach included polling Acadia staff to find out what areas we needed to improve upon. Their feedback turned out to be the building blocks of our plan to restructure management and operations.”
Staff and management pinpointed the need for more staff in certain departments; more training and ongoing coaching across all departments; empowering managers with the authority to make more decisions; and to streamline processes so training and procedures are the same, across all branches.
“With the dynamic growth that Acadia has and continues to experience, we outgrew the different positions’ structures,” said Acadia FCU Executive Vice President Luis Sanclemente. “We know that all the skills that got us here need to be continually developed and expanded upon in order to help us keep up with the great momentum we are building. This desire to continually improve our staff is at the heart of our drive to further develop our team.”
The restructuring means new hires and new roles for existing staff. All existing managers will stay on, some with shifting or expanding roles or title changes. The board of directors approved these positions: VP of Operations; VP of Compliance; VP of Lending; VP of Finance; Chief Relationship Officer; training manager; and support specialists.
Effective Jan. 1, Luis Sanclemente’s position changed from vice president to executive vice president as he begins to oversee all the new VP-level positions.
Former accounting manager, Erica Albert, is now Acadia’s VP of Finance. In this newly expanded role, she will direct all aspects of accounting operations and play a more strategic role in unifying financial matters.
Michele Martin, formerly loan manager, is now the VP of Lending. She will head all lending functions of the credit union, including commercial, consumer, real estate, indirect, and collections.
The restructuring resulted from months of meetings and strategic planning sessions by management, feedback from staff, and approval by the board of directors.
Acadia began the search for candidates to fill some of the new positions in October 2018 and the search is expected to continue throughout the first half of 2019. Implementation of new departments, processes, and shifting of duties will take place concurrently, officials said.
