Fayette County School Employees CU Shows Resilience in Face of Disaster

Two weeks ago, Fayette County School Employees Credit Union (CU) experienced one of the most dreaded emergencies—a devastating fire to their building. Sparked by cigarette ash that had smoldered in mulch out back for several hours, the late-evening blaze fortunately caused no injuries. But it did result in a total loss, leaving the credit union without a permanent home.

However, CEO Jill Pegg and her team were undeterred.

Thanks to the Disaster Recovery Plan they had already developed with the help of CrossState Solutions’ Compliance Consulting Program, they were able to act immediately. That night, Pegg began emailing the PA Department of Banking and Securities, NCUA, and CrossState about the situation as per the plan. Meanwhile, Chief Information Security Officer Daniel Hoff made calls to their disaster recovery location—his former workplace, Fayette County Career & Technical Institute (CTI)—to ensure that they would be able to set up right at 7:30 a.m. the next morning. And other key team members had kept the plan at home, meaning they had all the copies of forms and receipts they’d need.

“As much as the trainings can be annoying,” said Pegg, “it is thanks to them and thanks to guidance from Joanne [Broderick, Senior Manager of Compliances Services for CrossState Solutions] that we were able to move quickly and prevent our members from being put out. We’re still getting calls from members asking about what happened—they never knew there was an issue since their service wasn’t disrupted.”

Fayette County School Employees CU could only stay at the CTI for a couple of weeks because the school is closing for summer. They’ve since moved into another office space on a month-to-month lease not far from their lost home base. (In a unique twist, the landlord’s father and brother built the credit union’s original building!)

Pegg anticipates residing in this new temporary location for about a year as they rebuild. Despite the circumstances, she remains positive and grateful for how relatively smoothly everything has gone thanks to her team’s preparedness and the community support.

“My staff has been incredible,” she said. “Is it stressful? Yes. But they just did what they had to do. Truly, everything is falling into place.”

CrossState is proud to support Fayette County School Employees CU through their transition, with the Foundation issuing a Disaster Relief Grant of $1,000 and the Association and Solutions matching the funds. Their resilience and positive attitude are a true reflection of the strength of the credit union movement!