In the 19 years Leo MacNeil has worked at HarborOne Credit Union, he has remained true to the credit union industry’s original mission.
That’s because he was attracted by the credit union business model from the very beginning, even though he may not have known it at first.
MacNeil worked for 20 years at Savings Bank Life Insurance. At a time a transition in his professional career, he “discovered that the same people who founded SBLI were also working to establish credit unions. It was a visionary business model that helped immigrants” establish financial security, he said.
“I saw the same values,” he said, “and it was very rewarding and invigorating.”
But job satisfaction isn’t just about good feelings, it’s about hard work. That’s something MacNeil has put in from day one.
He was part of the team that helped establish HarborOne’s MultiCultural Banking Center, which helps low- and moderate-income individuals, minorities and immigrants gain the skills that lead to financial independence.
The program is a trailblazer, and MacNeil developed its curriculum, which includes not only financial and computer literacy courses in several languages, but citizen test preparation, credit counseling and first-time homebuyer courses.
Local high school students have benefitted from the “Credit For Life” program, which MacNeil had a hand in building. For more than 10 years, MacNeil has run the program’s financial literacy fair at Brockton High School. It has gone on to be the model for 300 similar fairs sponsored by other financial institutions across the country.
MacNeil also founded HarborOne’s “Caring Crew,” for which employees volunteered 3,600 hours in 2011 alone. And in 2012, he brought together 50 community partners for the “Brockton Knocks Down Diabetes” campaign.
“It’s enriching,” MacNeil said of all the community involvement he and HarborOne share in throughout the year. “In 2008, we researched why people did their banking with us, and they said, ‘because you actively support the causes that matter to me.'”
“I get to see the real heroes out there, the social workers,” MacNeil said, “and in this era of challenged banking, that’s a pretty good model. It grows our business.”
