On May 1, 1936, Washington state approves Robert J. Handy's application to organize a Seattle Teachers' Credit Union. The new group grows quickly, adding more than 900 members and $100,000 in assets in its first three years. The organization merged with Washington Teachers' Credit Union, also founded by Handy, in 1952 and was renamed Washington School Employees Credit Union in 1983. It is now (2002) associated with PEMCO Financial Services. In 2002 it was again renamed as School Employees Credit Union of Washington.
Robert J. Handy (1901-1984) began teaching in Seattle in 1924 and sold insurance on the side. He saw a credit union as a means by which teachers could pool resources to survive the Great Depression. Handy recruited other educators to serve on the founding board, including Fred Rantz (president), Frank Hamack (vice president), Kenneth Campbell, August Dvorak, Paul Hodge, and D. A. Staeger (secretary). (Handy's Seattle Teachers' Credit Union was not affiliated with the Seattle Teachers' Credit Association, previously founded by Ida Culver to provide emergency financial aid to teachers.)
University National Bank provided initial financing for the Seattle Teachers' Credit Union. At first, Handy operated out of the safety deposit vault of the Seattle First National Bank downtown Seattle branch at 4th Avenue and Pike Street. Then he shared the Whitman College's recruiting office in the White-Henry-Stuart Building. Later he set up "office hours" in the Seattle Public Library's downtown branch and finally rented a tiny room in downtown Seattle's Central Building.
At the urging of Governor Arthur Langlie, Handy chartered a new Washington Teachers' Credit Union in 1949. That same year, the two organizations occupied a new building on Eastlake Avenue, the first structure in the state built and owned by a credit union. The Seattle unit merged in 1952 with the Washington Teachers' Credit Union, and was renamed the Washington School Employees Credit Union in 1963. It now serves more than 60,000 members as part of the "family" of PEMCO Financial Services. In 2002, it was renamed the School Employees Credit Union of Washington.
