27 new branches in 5 years: How a credit union made by teachers went from a shoebox full of cash deposits to a multibillion-dollar business, second largest credit union in state

Lyn Cunningham and Craig Barrile became STCU members in 1975. The young couple needed a loan to purchase two mountain bikes, the kind “you have to hunch over,” for $150 each.
A little more than 50 years later, through three mortgages, four car loans and numerous interactions with bank tellers, the high school sweethearts living in Deer Park are still members of STCU.
On Jan. 21, STCU, originally called Spokane Teachers Credit Union, celebrated the grand opening of its 51st branch. Cunningham and Barrile visited the new 3,470 -square-foot location on the day of the grand opening for three reasons: STCU was giving out free chocolates, the couple’s “second home,” Costco Wholesale, is right next door, and because of the credit union’s convenient customer service.
Through a combination of building new branches from the ground up, acquiring branches in rural areas and merging with other banks and credit unions, STCU has bloomed into a major financial institution in the Northwest. STCU is now the third largest credit union in the state of Washington by asset size, behind only BECU and GESA, according to third quarter data from the National Credit Union Administration . It ranks 58th nationally, according to the NCUA.
“There is at least one STCU member in 52% of the households in Spokane County,” Dan Hansen, the strategic communications manager for STCU said, via email.
Two other credit unions headquartered in Spokane County are in the top 15 largest in the state: Numerica, originally Great Northern Employees Credit Union, is No. 6 and Horizon, originally Kaiser Employees Federal Credit Union, is No. 14.
With at least one member across more than half of all households in Spokane County, it’s evident STCU didn’t reach this level of success overnight. But in just the last five years, STCU has experienced unparalleled growth, opening 27 new locations across the Pacific Northwest since 2020.
Cunningham and Barrile joined the credit union created by and for teachers, partially because they used to be educators. Barrile was a guidance counselor at Deer Park High School for 17 years before becoming a lawyer, while Cunningham taught in Idaho, at Central Valley and across Spokane Public Schools for more than 20 years.
When the pair joined STCU, it had only one branch.
“Our first 30 years was at Lewis and Clark (High School) where we were doing business literally out of a shoe box,” said Lindsey Myhre, CEO of STCU, as she addressed the crowd outside the new branch.
STCU started in 1934 with nine women and one man, all of whom were educators. The credit union, at that time, operated out of a “cubby hole of a classroom,” with a shoebox full of cash deposits.
Ninety-two years later, STCU has blossomed into an organization with $6.4 billion in assets, 1,050 employees, and more than 307,000 members.
“I think we have to look at who we are and stay true to who and what our mission is and vision is,” said Chris Severin, senior vice president of retail at STCU. “What impact can we have? How can we help that community grow? How can we help those members get their financial needs taken care of?”
At their core, credit unions are nonprofit, meaning they don’t have shareholders to answer to nor taxes to pay on their earnings. They must pay a variety of local, state and federal taxes and fees, but they’re not required to pay federal income tax on profits because those profits are returned back to members in a multitude of ways.
“It’s a huge difference in the power of what the credit unions can do versus a bank, because we’re owned by our members,” Severin said.
Ryan Herzog, an economics professor at Gonzaga University and chair of Numerica Credit Union’s audit committee, said credit unions typically offer higher interest rates on deposit accounts than brick-and-mortar banks do. They also tend to offer lower interest rates on loans. He said credit unions, in the past, made their mark in the financial world by making used car loans a big part of their portfolio. And just like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for banks, the National Credit Union Administration insures up to $250,000 per individual depositor for credit unions.
Herzog said credit unions have expanded in size, scope and ability in recent years. Banks are more adept at managing stocks, creating retirement accounts and managing numerous financial services all from one place. Although, credit unions are “slowly moving into that space,” Herzog said.
“Banks tend to offer more services, kind of a one-stop shop in a lot of ways,” Herzog said. “Whereas credit unions tend to focus more on direct consumer products or small business loans, construction loans, housing loans.”
Today, STCU sits on the upper echelon when it comes to the credit union scene in Spokane. But it wasn’t always like that. A Spokesman-Review article from August 1984 by reporter Frank Bartel illustrated how Fairchild Federal Credit Union, which became Global Credit Union in 1988, was the largest credit union in Spokane with 41,000 members and $55 million in assets. Meanwhile, Spokane Teachers sat in second place with 15,000 members and $53 million in assets. Global merged with Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, and its headquarters are in Alaska.
An August 1991 Spokane Chronicle article said STCU membership was at 33,000 and assets were above $124 million.
Before that, a May 1964 news release from Ernest McElvain , the first president of STCU and a founding member, informed readers that STCU was building a new home off Nora and Atlantic now that the credit union had reached “full adulthood status.”
Thirty years after opening their doors, STCU vacated the “small space at the end of a hall on the second floor of Lewis and Clark High School,” and moved into their first official branch location. The news release details how 15 years after its founding, STCU served 500 members and had assets of over $100,000. After 25 years of operation, it had 1,500 members and assets had bloomed to a million dollars. By the time their first location opened in 1964, they had over 2,000 members and assets close to $1.5 million.
Much like how a 1979 Spokesman article explained, tight money and high interest rates put pressure on small, local credit unions just as they do for other financial institutions.
“But credit unions have something working for them that big banks don’t always have: loyalty,” reporter Barton Preecs said in that November article.
While STCU has seen an intense period of growth in the last few years, many smaller banks and credit unions, particularly those in rural areas, have disappeared. According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nationwide network of nearly 800 organizations advocating for a just economy, there were 14,483 FDIC-insured commercial banks in 1984. By 2021, that number dropped to fewer than 5,000. The vast majority of this change has been spurred by larger banks absorbing smaller ones through mergers and acquisitions.
Similarly, the National Credit Union Administration reported that by the end of 1990, the United States credit union system had 12,891 federally insured credit unions with $223 billion in assets and 61 million members. In 2025, the NCUA reported that number was down to around 4,400 credit unions, with total assets equal to $2.38 trillion and 143.8 million members.
Many credit unions, even today, have certain criteria that must be met in order for an individual to become a member, such as credit unions specifically for government employees or active military. Spokane Teachers Credit Union originally required members to be educators. STCU now accepts anyone as long as they live, work, or worship in Oregon, Washington or Idaho.
Since the beginning of credit unions, there have been numerous nonprofit financial institutions serving super specific groups of people. For instance, a Spokane Chronicle article from March 1968 explained how the Spokane unit of the Independent Garage Owners of Washington had selected leaders to run their new credit union.
But while credit unions have grown in name recognition and asset value over the decades, they’re still not a fraction of what the single largest bank has.
Hansen said that if you added the assets from all of the approximate 4,500 credit unions in the U.S. together, they wouldn’t come close to J.P. Morgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. With over 225 years of experience, J.P. Morgan Chase registered total assets of $4.4 trillion worldwide in 2025, which is $2 trillion more than of all credit unions combined. When it comes to banks headquartered in Washington, WaFd Bank, of Seattle, registered total assets of $26.7 billion, according to Sept. 30 data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Banner Bank, based in Walla Walla, ranks second in the state with about $16.5 billion in assets, while Washington Trust Bank, headquartered in Spokane, ranks third at $10.6 billion.
The mass exodus of big banks from rural areas because of lack of profitability, shift to digital banking and further consolidation has allowed credit unions to make their mark among the bucolic type. The CEO of STCU, Myhre, grew up in Colville and worked for the Colville National Forest for a period of time. Growing up in a smaller mountain town taught her the importance of organizations being immersed within their communities, which in turn keeps those communities thriving.
“What we really identified is there are banking deserts,” Myrhe said. “There are areas in our region that have no financial institution, or maybe only one financial institution. We want to make sure that people have choices … And online banking isn’t always the answer, and that’s why we support continuing to build our branches.”
Hansen said the majority of credit unions, including STCU, are a part of a coalition that provide members access to close to 10,000 ATMs across the country, as long as they belong to a credit union.
“At least in the United States, no matter where you are, you should be able to use an ATM without paying a fee,” Hansen said.
All STCU branches also offer members help submitting FAFSA, or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a program that prospective college students can use to determine their eligibility for federal grants, loans and work-study funds. The process of applying can be time-consuming and utterly confusing, which is why STCU has at least one employee well-versed in FAFSA to assist families across all 51 of their locations, Severin said.
When the government shutdown struck, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program froze, STCU set aside $300,000 for food assistance programs across the Pacific Northwest.
STCU’s Here For Good Foundation is a program that awards grants to education, arts and culture and economic development initiatives that help foster community. In 2025, Hansen said they hit the $1 million milestone in grants awarded through the foundation. Their charitable donations and attempts to give back to the community center around the three words sprawled across the credit union’s signature purple shirt: “Here for Good.”
“You can say it’s PR, but it’s not,” Severin said. “It’s living our mission. It’s still staying true to who we are, helping our communities. And if we can continue to grow and do the fundamental things, that’s success for us.”