Maurice “Maury” Dresang, founder of Community First Credit Union, died at age 90 on Monday in Appleton, Wis.
According to an obituary from the Valley Funeral Home of Appleton, in 1953 Dresang helped form a credit union to serve county employees. That institution became Outagamie County Employees Credit Union, where he served as volunteer manager/treasurer for two decades. In the late 1960s, Dresang was asked to manage both the Zwickerknit Credit Union and the Postal Employees Credit Union.
According to the Community First CU website, in 1970, Dresang led the formation of the Appleton Credit Union Service Center, which provided service to members from all three aforementioned credit unions in one location.
By 1978, more than a dozen different credit unions were under the Service Center umbrella, which led Dresang to engineer a merger that combined all of those credit unions into one, which was called Appleton Area Credit Union – renamed in 1983 as Community First Credit Union.
The credit union now has $3 billion in assets, serving more than 135,500 members in 13 counties in Northeastern and Central Wisconsin.
Dresang also served as chairman of Wisconsin Corporate Central Credit Union and was a director of the Wisconsin Credit Union League from 1970-1991, serving as its chairman from 1986-1989. In addition, he served as a director of the Credit Union National Association and was appointed to serve on the Wisconsin Credit Union Review Board.
The credit union’s headquarters is now located on a street named after its founder, Dresang Way, in Neenah, Wis.
Dresang’s wife, Catherine Tierney, has served as CEO of Community First CU since 1994.
Community First CU posted net income of about $41.1 million in 2018, a 4 percent decline from the prior year.
