In 1999, we launched a major new initiative, the Members Financial Service Program, through which our members could receive help with financial planning, brokerage assistance, and insurance. The Oak Ridge Laboratory made technology news by upgrading its Jaguar Cray XT5 supercomputer at a cool cost of $19.9 million, making it the world’s fastest supercomputer. On a modest scale, we made computer news of our own, revamping our Web site and adding a section for children. The year closed with the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act (the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) repealing parts of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. The new law partially deregulated the financial services industry, enabling investment firms, commercial banks, and insurance companies to integrate.

President Clinton signed the Credit Union Membership Access Act into law on August 7, a bill, the president said at signing, that “resolves uncertainty about the future of credit unions. It protects existing credit union members and makes it easier for credit unions to expand where appropriate [and] ensures that consumers continue to have a broad array of choices in financial services.”

There was other good news close to home in 1998. The Lady Vols capped an undefeated season with their third straight NCAA basketball championship, and the football Volunteers won the NCAA championship as well, sealing their historic run with a victory over Florida State in the 1999 Fiesta Bowl.

We entered the digital age in 1996 with the launch of ORNLFCU.com in July. In November we opened yet another branch and added two new drive-up ATMs at the Oak Ridge branch.

Mergers were the big news in 1993, as ORNL FCU merged with Knoxville’s Vinylex Employees Credit Union and later with ORAU Employee Federal Credit Union. There were new product offerings as well, of course, including double-play certificates, the debit card precursor ChequeMate Card, and a toll-free phone line for members.

Change was in the air in 1992, as Bob Candler retired as president and general manager and John McKittrick assumed the reins as president. New products rolled out that year included a 3-to-1 adjustable rate mortgage, Mortgage Rate Line, and Fast Equity Loan. At the University of Tennessee, serendipity was at work as Phillip Fulmer took over as interim head football coach and promptly led the Volunteers to upset wins over rivals Georgia and Florida. This winning era at UT would last for 15 years.

1989 capped a tumultuous time for the savings and loan industry. President George H.W. Bush signed legislation that summer to provide a federal bailout for 747 insolvent S&Ls following the greatest banking collapse since the Great Depression. The credit union industry continued to provide a model of stability and good stewardship, with ORNL FCU adding to its slate of services by providing members with access to professional financial planning services.

The 221 building opened officially in 1988, and the Clinton and Farragut branches came online as well. Telephone services were brought to a central location inside the new Oak Ridge branch, and check-clearing operations were brought in house to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In the bigger picture, 1988 was the year when the threat to credit unions’ tax-exempt status began to take shape, largely behind lobbying efforts from banks and other financial institution competitors. Like other credit unions, we encouraged our members to reach out to Congress to oppose this effort.

We began building our first Oak Ridge branch in 1986 and brought the Payment Saver Auto Plan online.

In 1985, a year in which President Reagan visited the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus to learn about the University’s work with local business and industry, we expanded our ATM network and introduced a touch-tone telephone service for members.

Our membership rolls swelled in 1983, when for the first time family members who didn’t live with Lab employees were accepted as members. Our assets surpassed $100 million that year, making us the largest federal credit union in Tennessee. We began offering a flat 7-percent dividend on regular shares and replaced old money market certificates with the Custom Certificate Program. We rolled out 142 ATM machines, launched a Seniority Club, and began providing loans to parents through the student loan program.

In 1982, as the World’s Fair came to Knoxville, the credit union added several new products, among them the 91-Day Money Market Account. We began cashing U.S. Savings Bonds and upgraded our computer system, improving service on both teller lines and telephone transactions.

More new products were rolled out the next year, 1980: mini-market and jumbo certificates, monthly interest on money market certificates, and a trial run of Visa and MasterCards. A new slogan – Your Kind of Place – made its debut as well. There was important national news as well: President Carter signed into law the Deregulation and Monetary Control Act giving credit unions the right to issue share drafts.

The credit union managed to improve its own stability while increasing offerings to members via IRA accounts, Money Market Certificates, and money management seminars. This was also the year when our name was shortened to ORNL Federal Credit Union.

We received a signal honor in 1978, when the National Credit Union Administration created a new Family Service Award and named us as one of the first recipients. A whole host of new of services was launched, including home improvement loans, auto insurance, automated posting of payroll checks, and van car pool financing. Certified Share Drafts and Cashier’s Drafts rounded out our new slate of offerings.

In 1975, we began paying dividends on members’ daily balances and became the first Tennessee credit union to compute dividends on the basis of “date of deposit to date of withdrawal.”

In 1972, we launched our Once a Member, Always a Member initiative, opened a library for members’ use, and climbed to 17th largest credit union in Tennessee, based on assets.

As American astronauts took their first steps on the moon in 1969, our credit union took its own “giant step” by establishing Retirement Savings Accounts for members. We also launched two other services – the Personal Service Loan Plan and telephone withdrawal of shares.

By 1967, ORNL EFCU was a $5.7 million institution. Lending policies were liberalized to allow more members to borrow.

The greatest single growth year in our history came in 1964, when assets surged by more than $630,000, income rose by 19 percent, and expenses as a percentage of income fell. This extraordinary growth was spurred by several crucial changes: an increase in the share limit to $5,000, the lifting of restrictions on individual deposits, and amendment of the bylaws to allow retired workers to retain their credit union memberships.

Nineteen sixty-one was an eventful year by any measure. The Berlin Wall sprang up in Europe, and the Soviets unleashed a 57-megaton hydrogen bomb, the largest artificial explosion in human history. But here in Tennessee, it was a time of calm and prodigious growth. The Lab began a slow pivot toward a “balanced laboratory” approach focused on environmental, health, and social initiatives that would stand it in good stead in the years to come. At ORNL EFCU, our assets had doubled, to $2.2 million, and we began offering life insurance to our members.

Our growth continued apace. By 1959, despite difficulties at the Lab that brought 20-percent budget cuts and a major staff reduction, our credit union was still going strong, with assets exceeding $1 million. Our board approved a larger, 5.5-percent dividend. We boosted the maximum unsecured loan amount to $750 and extended the lengthiest repayment period to five years.

Also in 1959, we joined the Tennessee Credit Union League, which focused then, as it does today, on supporting legislative and regulatory efforts that benefit credit unions, and providing operating support for training, education, research, and communications endeavors.

By 1952, just four years after our launch, we’d grown from humble beginnings to a robust $400,000 institution. We paid our first dividend, a generous 4.2 percent. A Supervisory Committee report enshrined our purpose: To promote thrift among our members and to create for them a source of credit for provident or productive purposes.

Two short years later, war was again in the picture, as the first Tennesseans marched off to fight in Korea. ORNL EFCU launched a payroll deduction plan that year, 1950. It was our first major initiative aimed at simplifying and empowering our members’ financial lives.

Nineteen forty-eight, the year of our credit union’s birth, was a tumultuous time in the world. Much of Europe lay in ruins, its cities bombed, its economies destroyed, its people facing starvation. Here in the United States, we had an abundance of products and raw materials to sell, but few trading partners capable of buying them. President Truman solved that problem with the Marshall Plan, which helped Europe rebuild and laid the foundation for renewed prosperity here at home.

The global uncertainty that year stretched well beyond economics. The Berlin Blockade was underway, Communists had seized power in Czechoslovakia, and here at home, Alger Hiss was charged with handing State Department secrets to the enemy.

In this atmosphere of intense economic and political uncertainty, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Employees Federal Credit Union was born. Created to provide stability and a financial safe haven for those who worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, our credit union received its charter on August 6, 1948.

ORNL itself was only six years old at the time. Known first as X-10, then as Clinton Laboratories, it had carried out the critical but highly secret task of producing and separating plutonium for the atomic bomb that would end World War II. In January 1948, after a period of uncertainty, it was rechristened the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, designated by the Atomic Energy Commission as one of three original National Laboratories.

With the future of the Lab itself in place, it was time to build a financial institution to serve the several thousand workers who would staff the Lab as it transitioned from war- to peacetime research. At our inception, in August 1948, our credit union had a total of ten members.