Thriving on change to meet challenges

According to Socrates, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

David Libby has discovered that secret. It’s what motivates him to come to work.

“It’s the variety and excitement of what we do every day—always exploring and discussing new ideas of how we can engage members, attract new members, and handle constant change,” says Libby, president/CEO of $373 million asset Town & Country Federal Credit Union in South Portland, Maine. “I love change and how that makes things better.”

Under his leadership, the credit union was among the first four financial institutions in the country to introduce an Alexa Skill with account-linking capabilities for Amazon Echo devices, and the first credit union in Maine to offer Apple Pay, check-imaging ATMs, and dialogue/pod stations for its 38,000 members.

Libby’s passionate about bringing people together to improve the quality of life in the community—starting with employees. He was instrumental in developing the Town & Country Center, a state-of-the-art space housing the credit union’s operations staff. Designed to encourage collaboration, it has the latest in office technology and incorporates nearly 70% of items on a staff “wish list.”

Libby inspires staff to pursue their ideas and to take risks to develop new initiatives. “I’m always pushing everyone to look beyond and not focus on what challenges we have today, but on what challenges we can predict five years out or more,” Libby says.

His goal is to get people to see what they can’t see yet. “Many times, what’s coming and the changes we need to make in order to meet them are right in front of our noses,” he says. “But it’s hard to get people with many viewpoints to connect the dots and understand how it will impact our members and themselves in everyday life. I love helping people overcome that, as well as overcome that in myself. There is no ‘that can’t work’ with me.”