Jim Fair
Bill Partin, CEO of Sharonview Federal Credit Union, is given the symbolic first dollar of profit from Mikelle Porter of the Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce.
Jim Fair
Charlotte Marquess, Sharonview Branch Manager, Rose Marchek of Mitsubishi Polyester Film, and Jean Hockney, financial services representative of Sharonview at the credit union's ribbon cutting Thursday.
Jim Fair
A photo shoot of the ribbon cutting was taken outdoors while the video of the actual cutting was moved indoors.
Jim Fair
Sharonview Federal Credit Union is located at 1324 W. Wade Hampton Blvd. and open for business Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sharonview Federal Credit Union has added its brick to the Wade Hampton Boulevard corridor.
“It was the number three recommendation of a study we had that said if you do anything, here’s the top five choices,” Bill Partin, Sharonview CEO, said at Thursday’s ribbon cutting. “You need to get a branch on Wade Hampton Blvd.”
Sharonview was formerly located in a doublewide on Hood Road near Mitsubishi Polyester Film.
“It’s another good business. We’re going to see a lot of diversity coming through here,” Mayor Rick Danner said, referring to the Wade Hampton Boulevard corridor.
Two years ago the city committed $1 million, over a 3-year period, to develop a street lighting program, with a canopy-like appearance, from the city’s gateways on Wade Hampton Blvd., from Gap Creek Road to the Target Shopping Center.
Partin said potential members are more likely to see the business on the highway connecting Spartanburg and Greenville. “One of the things the study didn’t have to tell us was we needed more visibility with the growth going on in this market area,” Partin said. “Now potential members can easily find us.
“Secondarily, Greer is just booming and so is Spartanburg and Simpsonville. We feel like we want to put more and more effort in the upper state of South Carolina and we feel we need more branches.”
Charlotte Marquess, formerly with National Bank of South Carolina at Sharonview’s location, is the branch manager of the 3,800-square-foot building. “Getting Charlotte to stay here is a real boom for us, too,” Partin said.
First lien mortgages make up more than 50 percent of Sharonview’s portfolio. “Our ideal target member when we look for businesses to go after, we look for folks who want to buy cars and buy a home,” Partin said. “Our mortgage portfolio is double the size of our car and loan portfolio so we really do a good job putting our members in homes.
“We are looking for businesses looking to grow and want some help from a financial wellness perspective,” Partin said. “So we’re trying to help them. We not only have great loan rates but we can help save money on their loans.”
Partin came to Sharonview almost two years ago as a senior vice president with The Walt Disney Company’s Partners Federal Credit Union in California. He has lectured on “What I learned from Walt” and has adopted some of the customer service qualities learned at the Burbank, Calif., company.
“We have a mantra in our office, ‘Progress Not Perfection’, so we are striving hard to get those wow moments, Partin said. “We know every once in a while we might stub our toes but we do the service recovery. If we have something not go the way the member wants it to go, we are going to double down on our efforts and make sure that member is taken care of .”
Sharonview was founded in 1955 with 20 employees of a Celanese research facility in Charlotte, with $11,000 in assets. The company has $1 billion in assets and 68,000-members serviced in South Carolina, North Carolina and New Jersey.
Sharonview is named for its first office located at the intersection of Sharon Road and Fairview. The original charter remains in Partin’s office.