Meet Chuck Bomar and Julie Keown-Bomer!

Chuck Bomar and Julie Keown-Bomar “Anytime We can be Outside is a Pretty Good Day.”

Chuck Bomar is a Dean at UW-Stout, and Julie Keown-Bomar is an administrator for the University of Wisconsin Extension program—yet both of these educators will gladly admit they are still learning.

Chuck is a big fan of online banking, and appreciates the fact that he can pay bills and monitor their WESTconsin account without a single trip to the mailbox.

Julie’s job means a lot of driving. She researched and purchased a reliable vehicle and, while closing the sale, agreed to the dealership’s expedient financing through a large bank, rather than securing a loan through WESTconsin Credit Union, where they have been members for many years.

“It turned out to be a nightmare,” Julie recalls. “They accused me of not making payments and they treated me like a criminal!”

Julie turned to WESTconsin, where she and Chuck already had multiple home and refinancing loans, and was able to resolve the situation—and transfer the car loan to the credit union—in just a matter of days. Lesson learned! #CountOnWESTconsin

Meet Cindy Leonard: Founder of the Sharing Tree in Hudson

Making Back-To-School Fun for Everyone

Cindy Leonard’s family founded the Hudson Sharing Tree in 2002 after an encounter Cindy had with a custodian in Stillwater, Minnesota, who was registering his kids for school supplies in their local Sharing Tree program.

“On his registration I saw that he was a Hudson resident, and we couldn’t serve him,” She recalls. “I promised him that this program would be in Hudson the following year, and it was.”

The Sharing Tree is a school supply program for students that attend schools in the Hudson School District. It provides everything from pencils and color markers all the way up to backpacks and calculators, and Cindy has teamed with WESTconsin Credit Union in Hudson to acquire, store, and distribute the supplies.

“WESTconsin’s commitment to us, by allowing me to have storeroom space, probably saves me $1,600, a year,” Cindy says. “And that’s not to mention the time they give volunteering.”