Mike is recognized as an international credit union leader, advocate, and innovator. He leads CU Strategic Planning's legislative outreach efforts to support CDFI Fund appropriations. His strategic work was instrumental and part of a large coordinate effort leading to a $12 billion carve-out for CDFIs in the Cares Act.

He was called to be a credit union advocate, lobbyist and lawyer and was at ground zero in North Carolina as the league's EVP and chief lobbyist during the fight to pass the Credit Union Membership Access Act, and the first anti-payday lending law in the nation.

Mike’s work at the World Council of Credit Unions helped set the modern-day development of dozens of partnerships between U.S. credit union leagues and the overseas credit union movement. He worked on the ground with credit unions in more than 30 countries on behalf of WOCCU including Uzbekistan, Philippines, Kenya, Zambia, Jamaica, Belize, South Africa, and Suriname. Mike led hundreds of Americans overseas and hundreds of international credit union leaders to the U.S. His work at the WOCCU helped set the modern-day development of dozens of partnerships between U.S. credit union leagues and the overseas credit union movement.

Mike served as the CEO of the Maryland-DC League from 2004 to 2010. He expanded to cooperatives in 2012 when asked to save the National Cooperative Business Association from financial and operational issues where he returned the cross-sector cooperative association to profitability and growth.

Mike joined CU Strategic Planning in 2015, but he has a dynamic history of working with us. Starting in 2010 in his role as President/CEO of the Missouri Credit Union Association, Mike partnered with CU Strategic Planning to create Community Development Across Missouri. The project was the first mass certification of credit unions as CDFIs and garnered the greatest number of CDFI grants awarded to a single state in one funding round, which stands to this date. That's why he leads new credit union CDFI onboarding today.

He was born into a credit union family. His mom and dad met at Agriculture FCU in the 1960s, and together these three have worked more than 100 total years in the movement. Mike spent more than 10 years working inside credit unions learning about members and how they own their credit union.

Two schnauzers, Ripley and Gatsby look out for Mike regardless of whether he is walking the halls of Congress or exploring the Coachella Valley in Palm Springs, California.