True Sky Credit Union opens Midwest City branch

Last Updated on May 23, 2023, 9:02 PM | Published: May 23, 2023

MIDWEST CITY (Okla) — True Sky Credit Union opened its 15th branch to the public Saturday, this time in Midwest City with a celebration including their usual hotdogs, donuts, and other activities for adults and kids.

At the ribbon cutting the day before on Friday, Free Press talked with several leaders who contribute to True Sky’s daily operation.

The difference

Annette Leeth, Associate Vice President of Operations, told Free Press that she worked in a bank for 20 years and there are some significant differences.

“I think that the biggest difference is that we have the tools, and we have the heart,” said Leeth. “And, our mission is people helping people. So to know that we have the mission, and we have that heart, and we have the ability, and we work for them to be able to know that we can cover their financial stuff,” means a lot.

Helping youth

With the Midwest City branch close to Tinker AFB and the Edmond branch close to the University of Central Oklahoma, True Sky has a presence close to large populations of young people who are still sorting out their knowledge of finances.

Free Press talked with Chief Financial Officer Mike Workman about the special needs of young adults who come to True Sky for reliable and knowledgeable help.

“A lot of today’s youth and individuals of all ages … don’t know they can be members of credit unions,” said Workman. “They don’t know what a credit union is. They don’t know how we differ from a bank. And there are a lot of differences between us and banks.

There are a lot of differences between us and banks. One we don’t have stock and most important, we don’t have stockholders. We don’t have to answer with earnings each quarter. We report to our members and our members only.”

Workman emphasized that a credit union answers only to its members. Essentially, the members are the only stockholders.

Excited members

Greg Hill, Vice Chair of the Board, told Free Press that people who are already members in Midwest City have already been contacting him, excited to have a branch close to where they live.

“I’m just thrilled to death anytime you can come into a community, be a part of that community, and have that commitment, it really doesn’t get any better than that.

At the Friday ribbon-cutting, Treasurer of the Board, Terry Davidson, said that True Sky had been “trying to get to Midwest City for about 15 years” and just couldn’t get there. He told the gathered crowd of Midwest City officials and Midwest City Chamber of Commerce officials that True Sky was glad to finally make it.

Jay Foote, Chief Experience Officer for True Sky talked to us about the heavy need for the branch in MWC just starting with current members.

“We think it’s going to be a huge impact because honestly when we opened our Northeast branch, which is all the way over by the zoo, I can’t tell you how many of our members were coming in from Midwest City to go to that branch,” said Foote.

Outreach

True Sky has been on an upward trajectory of reaching out to communities throughout the metro and beyond the metro.

One of the first things True Sky does is to give back to the community to start.

One branch’s groundbreaking coincided with True Sky officers taking over the registers at a nearby nonprofit grocery store and paying for people’s groceries.

This time, officers took over a gas station across the intersection from the new MWC branch and paid for gas as people came in to fill up and talked with them about True Sky and pointed out the new location just across the intersection.

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