February 2022 Newsletter
Letter from the President
MEAN PEOPLE SUCK
Remember that bit of bumper sticker wisdom from the 1990’s? The simplicity of the message was, I think, supposed to signify a profound truth, a subtle judgement and possibly a call to action for us all to purge ourselves of some undefined malicious character trait.
No offense if you had one of those stickers (I did too), but what a load of horse poop.
I was contemplating ways to ask our current members (people reading this letter) to refer the people they work with to the credit union for service, when I drove past a vehicle with this vapid declaration in the supermarket parking lot – a fossil from a different age, like a deliberately dirty flannel shirt or a Roxette CD. Sure, it’s a bumper sticker, what can you expect, but I was struck a bit by the contemptuousness of the messaging — the only thing I have to do to prove that I am not one of those sucky mean people is to slap this black and white message on my car, so that the person behind me at the light must take a few seconds to evaluate their fault for everything wrong in the universe. But I’m good. I put on the bumper sticker, after all.
The reality of course is that to BE good, we need to DO good, not just declare it. And then it occurred to me (bear with me on this) that referring a co-worker to Montana Health is a way to do good. Sound like a stretch? Well, consider that your credit union is a not-for-profit institution that dedicates a rather significant chunk of its proceeds to local health care related charities every year. Or that your credit union provides free and confidential financial counseling sessions to health care workers, some of whom you may know. Did you know that your credit union provides free credit monitoring services, better rates, lower fees and personal service — all primarily for health care workers? Did you know that the credit union staff volunteers tons of hours to local health care foundations? I won’t dance around it — referring your credit union to other health care workers IS a way of doing good. Cause, put bluntly, the more members we have, the more of all that good stuff we can do.
So, instead of coming up with a clever tagline, I’ll just say this: an easy way to act good, instead of just declaring it, is to recommend Montana Health to your co-workers. Yes, it’s a little thing — but those little things add up when we act collectively.
But if you need it boiled down into a bumper sticker, how about this:
I DON’T SUCK. I SENT A FRIEND TO MHFCU.
Ok. I probably wouldn’t make it in the bumper sticker business. But thanks for reading this rant.

Dennis R. Wizeman
President/CEO
