Devin Selte is congratulated by CUES SVP/Chief Operating Officer Barb Kachelski, CAE.

Frank Sinatra is famous for singing that love is lovelier the second time.

Devin Selte says his second effort to capture the title of CUES’ Next Top Credit Union Exec similarly turned out “lovelier” than his initial try.

Corporate Trainer, Leadership Development and Change Leadership with $10 billion Servus Credit Union, Edmonton, Alberta, Selte was named 2011 Next Top Credit Union Exec for developing a program to groom young CU employees for management positions. For winning the challenge—which required him to write blog posts, create videos and face off against four other finalists at CEO/Executive Team Network, he earns two years’ tuition to CEO Institute.

Selte, a CUES NextGen member, says his unsuccessful bid to be Next Top Credit Union Exec in 2010 played a major role in winning the 2011 challenge.

“Fortunately, I wasn’t selected to represent the Canadian region in ’10. My project wasn’t developed to the degree it is now.”

Servus CU President/CEO and CUES member Garth Warner says Selte’s win reflects his hard work. “I’m very proud and pleased for him. This is a terrific achievement and we look forward to more of this from him.”

The Rink is a Classroom

Selte grew up in Vermilion, Alberta, a largely agricultural community of about 4,000 people, 120 miles east of Edmonton.

“[Vermilion] was a great small-town community, one of those places where everyone knows your name,” he recalls. First lacing up his skates at age three, Selte and his three brothers learned to play Canada’s national game on a rink his late father created on the family’s acreage.

“We had lights down the middle (of the rink) so that we could play all hours of the night. We’d get home from school and go down to the rink and skate. We’d go have supper and then go back and skate for a few more hours. Our weekends were pretty much spent on those rinks.”

According to Selte, the hockey games he played with his brothers and in organized competition helped foster traits that have served him well in his credit union career. Among those attributes, says Selte, are the importance of being organized enough to complete his school work and skate, learning to be a team player and staying humble.

In fact, Selte remembers how his first CU CEO placed great value on whether a prospective employee had participated in team sports as a child, because it indicated the person was someone who could work successfully in a team environment.

Success Built on Success

The roots of Selte’s award-winning creation of the Servus CU Young Leaders Network were nurtured by a trip he made to Barcelona in 2009 for the World Council of Credit Unions conference. Selte made the trip as one of 40 Servus CU employees honored by the credit union with the “President’s Award of Excellence.”

At that conference Selte met Australian Ross Lambrick, who described a young leaders network serving CUs throughout the Land Down Under.

“I ended up writing a proposal about how my credit union could develop a similar program,” Selte says.

He approached CUES member Eric Dillon, then Servus CU’s chief operating officer, about the idea.

Dillon, now CEO at $4.4 billion Conexus Credit Union in Regina, Alberta, recognized the potential for such a network. “Devin talked about the opportunity that [the network] would create in terms of recruiting, motivating and engaging a bunch of all-stars in the finance business. The credit union had an opportunity that no one else had.”

Back in Alberta, Dillon forwarded Selte’s proposal to Servus CU’s chief people officer, Dan Bruinooge. Bruinooge liked the plan and passed the idea onto senior management.

Those top officials not only gave Selte the green light, they gave him the freedom to develop the program on his own. Selte says, “The management philosophy was that you’d get a stronger ‘buy-in’ from young leaders when the program is run by young leaders.”

Bruinooge says approving the plan was an easy decision. “It was unanimous that this concept has huge potential and could position Servus CU as a leader in engaging and developing young leaders. What a great way to engage, develop and retain young leaders and create better human resources.”

As Dillon explains, senior management’s decision to allow Selte to run the network was an all-too-rare example of a credit union providing the perfect mix of support for a burgeoning project.

“While we said to Devin that the project was his to create, we were always excited about helping him be successful. And that’s a quantum leap from what I have seen at most credit unions.”

Launched in late 2009, the Young Leaders Network currently has 325 Servus CU employees under the age of 35 participating in such offerings as mentoring opportunities and an online social networking site.

As for the need for the program, Selte says most businesses will soon be facing the mass retirement of baby boomers, many of whom are in executive positions.

“The question becomes, ‘How can we support the credit union by ensuring that we have key people in place so that when the baby boomers start to retire, that we have younger people ready to move into those senior positions,’” he says.

Last September, the network hosted its first “35 Under 35 Leadership Retreat” at a campground on Sylvan Lake, a popular tourist destination. The two-day event gave network members a chance to partake in presentations on the CU system, networking opportunities, internal leadership programs and leadership readiness assessments.

He’s a Natural

Selte’s success with Servus CU’s Young Leaders Network has helped spur him into a new career direction in training with the CU. Selte had previously worked in the CU’s commercial lending since 2003.

While he was initially unsure as to whether he wanted to make the move, Selte says Dillon provided some sound guidance. “[Dillon] said, ‘Look at the most successful things that you have done, things that have made you happy in your work in the past year. Put them on a list on paper and see which ones are better aligned with your career path. Do you want to stay in business banking or is leadership development more important to you?’”

The hands-down winner, says Selte, was development because, “It’s something that I’ve really become passionate about. ”

Dave Windsheimer is a freelance writer based in upstate New York.