The Board of Directors monitors the financial condition of the credit union, insures compliance with bylaws and state and federal regulations; develops short- and long-term objectives. These objectives while meeting the needs of the PCU members should also reflect credit union philosophy.

The board of PCU welcomes your anonymous comments, messages and suggestions. Simply click here to get in touch. If you would like a response, please include your email address or phone number.

PCU Board Members:

Mary Lynn Collins: Long before permaculture and sustainability became trendy buzzwords, I was interested in our connection to each other and to the Earth. To me, permaculture is more than backyard gardening. How do we maintain people and cultures while sustaining the planet? Is it possible to convince people that they can have rich, full lives without destroying the environment? Do we tell them or do we show them?

My formal education includes a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from the University of Connecticut and a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from Emerson College in Boston. While in graduate school, I worked at a mutual fund company and learned about the financial markets and how to explain them in easy to understand language. This led me to my current career.

Professionally, I consider myself a financial educator. I have over 15 years of experience training on a variety of topics in the corporate world. I’ve spent many years teaching the pre-licensing training for a variety of stock broker licenses. I have banking experience through my position as training director of First National Bank of Santa Fe. I’ve taught college courses on public speaking. Now I’m focusing on financial literacy and feel I have found my true calling.

I enjoy working with the PCU board and members to help us all reach our financial goals while living the principles of permaculture…and showing others that they can do it to.

Donal Kinney: I am a self-employed CPA and consultant to small business. I hold degrees in Economics, Business Administration, and Accounting. Since 1992, my consulting practice has been focused on the ecologically conscious business community. I have volunteered for the Permaculture Credit Union since 1997.

I am a Permaculture Design Course graduate (1993), and am also trained in ecology, organic farming, sustainability, and personal development. My family and I live on a small farm in Dixon, NM, where we strive for an ecologically conscious lifestyle.

My interest as a Board Member is to keep the Credit Union focused on providing the lowest possible loan interest rates, in order to make Permaculture projects affordable. To accomplish this, I feel that the PCU must be focused on operational efficiency. I also believe that it is essential to generate a profit from operations, so that the PCU is self-sustaining, and growing our ability to lend. Our internal operations should set an example in terms of energy and resource use.

Brendan Miller: My personal mission is to promote permaculture and sustainable communities. I currently work for the New Mexico Economic Development Department as its first Green Economy Manager. In this role, I promote the growth of clean energy and clean technology business in New Mexico and staff Governor Richardson's Green Jobs Cabinet.

I have worked with a hydrogen fuel cell company and real estate development company focused on energy- and location-efficient projects here in New Mexico. I have experience working for industry, government and the non-profit sector and I am interested in business and government collaboration to improve quality of life.

As a Director of the Permaculture Credit Union, my priorities are to 1) grow our membership base and assets to give more loans, and 2) ensure that PCU stays a national leader in providing innovative loans for permaculture and sustainability that mainstream banks are not providing. A variety of banks are starting to provide "green" loans, which is wonderful and certainly partly a result of the work done by PCU. PCU may not be big, but the ripples effects of its leadership are. That is why it is important to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

I have a business degree from MIT, and a public policy degree from Harvard. I have been a student of permaculture and sustainability for a long time. I have taken a permaculture course from Scott Pittman at EcoVersity, as well as a course on raising goats, and look forward to talking more courses there. I was born in New Jersey but moved to Santa Fe after getting engaged to my wife, Tamara Bates, who went to the College of Santa Fe. We live in a house with passive and active solar heat and hot water and I drive a VW Jetta using only B20 biodiesel. I have lived in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Northwest and now the Southwest and love the variety of landscapes and people across the United States.

Hugh Roberts: My commitment to the philosophy of cooperatives in general and credit unions in particular occurred over fifty years ago when I became a founding member and the first treasurer of the employees credit union at Sterling Drug Company in Windsor, Ontario. In 1993, as a United Methodist minister in Northern New Mexico, I became aware of socially responsible investing and the concept of ‘doing well by doing good’. I moved my personal savings into socially responsible mutual funds. Since 1999, I have done all of my banking with a credit union.

I became involved in sustainable agriculture in 1976, when I partnered with John Jeavons (author of "How to Grow More Vegetables...") to organize the first International Conference on Small Scale Food Production, which I chaired. That conference persuaded the American Society of Agronomy to officially recognize organic agriculture, and specifically bio-intensive food production, as scientifically sound. I am currently Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Sustainability Fund, a California-based non-profit organization created to be a funding intermediary between major foundations and small non-profits working in sustainable agriculture.

Prior to entering the Ministry in 1991, I directed research and development in agribusiness, held executive positions in several non-profit organizations working on international development and world hunger, and taught business courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels at Eastern New Mexico University. I retired from the Ministry in 1999. I chaired the Soil, Food and People Conference at the University of California-Davis, in 2000; and in 2005 I co-taught a course, “Sustainable Solutions for an Overused World”, at the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos.

I became a member of the Permaculture Credit Union in 2004, was elected to the Board of Directors in 2005 and have served in various capacities.

Wesley Roe: was born in Hamilton Canada in 1950 to parents who were environmentalists, union members and supporters, political activists and credit union members. He was encouraged to be involved in community service. Education: High School and two years McMaster University studying Urban Planning. He opened an Alternative Health Clinic in Santa Barbara, CA in 1981 where he worked as a colon therapist and iridologist until 1988. He then moved to Hawaii and began living in Waa Waa on the Big Isle working in the small community growing food. He moved to Los Angeles in 1993 where he took Permaculture Design Courses with Bill Mollison and Scott Pittman. Wesley moved back in Santa Barbara in 1997 and with a group of people from the Design Course in Ojai, CA, helped to organize the South Coast Permaculture Guild. He was also involved in organizing the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, a nonprofit organizationin Santa Barbara that runs Permaculture Programs in the community and organizing grassroots Book Tours for Permaculture and Natural Building authors in CA and Arizona . He has opened a health clinic that was totally renovated using non toxic green building products in Santa Barbara in June of 2003 . As soon as he found that a Permaculture Credit Union was being formed he volunteered his assistance and has been an active board member for the last 3 years. Wes is married to Marge Erickson who has provided amazing financial and emotional support to allow him to do this important community work.

Andrew ‘Drew’ Tulchin, I am Managing Partner of Social Enterprise Associates, a management consulting company focused on the triple bottom line and a registered ‘B Corp’. I bring more fifteen years professional experience advancing sustainable initiatives.

My consulting spans more than 30 countries, throughout the U.S. and in Indian Country. Recent clients include the SEEP Network, Environmental Defense Fund, City of Santa Fe, U.S. Dept. of Treasury CDFI Fund, and Fort Apache Heritage Foundation on the White Mountain Apache Indian Tribe.

Previously, I was Program Officer for the microfinance institution Grameen Foundation, serving as founding staff person on the Capital Markets Group. I led a US microfinance institution catering to immigrants and refugees in the Washington, DC metro area. My work has generated more than $100 million for socially motivated efforts leveraging the power of the marketplace. Prisma Microfinance's co-written plan was a Global Social Venture Competition award winner.

I began my career in National Community Service, as a VISTA (US domestic Peace Corps) providing Red Cross post disaster assistance after Los Angeles’s Earthquake.

I completed his MBA at University of Washington and my BA, Cum Laude from Washington University. My studies included a year abroad at Sussex University in the UK.

In my free time, I play ultimate Frisbee, hike, and enjoy bad puns.