Behind the 2017 Nominations
In a previous blog post, we noted that our 2017 competition once again had over 200 nominees – our third year in a row! We dug into those nominees a little deeper and came up with some interesting numbers.
From Aimi to Zuleger, our nominees’ last names covered nearly every letter of the alphabet. This time, we’re only missing last names starting with a U and an X. Where are all the Underwoods’ and Xie’s?
The most common first name among our women nominees was Jessica with a resounding seven nominees, followed by four each of Amanda, Megan/Meghan, and Nicole/Nikki. Katie, Mallory, Rachel, Shannon and Stephanie each had three nominees.
Over on the men’s side of the draw, we saw strong representation from Jared, Mark, Matthew and Tyler with three nominees each. Dan/Daniel/Danny squeezed into second place with four nominees, but the perennial winning group of Michael/Mike again took the crown with five nominees.
We weren’t quite sure where to place the five nominees named Kelley/Kelli/Kellie/Kelly.
While each nominee was typically nominated just once, one nominee had three different people nominate them. We’re expecting an application from this nominee!
Many credit unions have outstanding young leaders working at them. In fact, our nominees represented 168 different credit unions in two countries. FirstOntario Credit Union in Hamilton, Ontario led the way with four nominees, followed by a five-way tie between Call Federal Credit Union in Richmond, Virginia, Collins Community Credit Union in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Town & Country Federal Credit Union in Portland, Maine, West Community Credit Union in O’Fallon, Missouri, and Y-12 Federal Credit Union in Oak Ridge, Tennessee with three nominees each.
Americans once again dominated our nomination pool. 204 nominees were from the United States, while six Canadians were waving the flag for the Great White North.
For the second consecutive year, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had nominees. Our top three nominating states were Texas, Florida and Wisconsin each with ten or more nominees. Every state had at least two nominees, with the exception of Montana, who managed just one nominee.
Our six Canadian nominees were from three different provinces - Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario – which geographically are in the middle of the country.
While we didn’t have any non-American or non-Canadian nominees this year, in the past, we’ve had nominees from Australia, Belize, England, Guam and Jamaica.
The real question though is, “How many are going to apply?” Whether you were nominated or not, if you are 35 or under and work for a credit union somewhere in the world, you’re eligible to apply to become the 2017 CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec. Applications close at 3:00 pm ET on June 26.
