Behind the Nominations
In a previous blog post, we noted that we had a record 236 nominees for the 2016 competition. We dug into those nominees a little deeper and came up with some interesting numbers.
From Aimi to Zwaska, our nominees’ last names covered nearly every letter of the alphabet. Wherefore art thou, Q, U and X?
The most common first name among our women nominees was Ashley with five nominees, followed by Amanda with four nominees. Don’t worry Ashleys and Amandas, you’re in good company. Just ask former winners Ashley Kohlrus and Amanda Brenneman.
On the men’s side, while Chris/Christopher, David, Dustin, Jared, John, Kyle, Matt/Matthew, Richard/Ricky and Thomas/Tom were all in the running with three nominees each, it was Michael/Mike that took the crown with five nominees.
While each nominee was typically nominated just once, one nominee had four different people in their corner nominating them. We’re expecting an application from this nominee!
Many credit unions have outstanding young leaders working at them. Our nominees represented 168 different credit unions. West Community Credit Union in O’Fallon, Missouri had six nominees, followed in a three-way tie by Affinity Plus FCU in St. Paul, Minnesota, America’s First FCU in Birmingham, Alabama and Seasons FCU in Middletown, Connecticut with five nominees each.
Americans dominated our nomination pool this year—233 of our nominees were from the United States, with three lone Canadians representing the Great White North.
For the first time, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had nominees. Our top five nominating states were Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Missouri, each with more than ten nominees. States with lone nominees included Mississippi, Rhode Island, Utah and the District of Columbia.
Our three Canadian nominees each represented a different province— all of them in Western Canada. British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan have all had winners or finalists from those provinces before. Will it happen again this year?
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 2016 CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec. Applications close at 3:00 p.m. ET on June 24.
CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec Team
