Jim Updike’s rise through the credit union industry started at the very bottom with a small loan to buy a TV set in 1969.

He was stationed at the San Diego Naval Hospital after a year’s deployment in Vietnam, where he served as a combat medic and was awarded a Purple Heart (for what he calls a minor wound). Updike was 22 years old, recently married and had never borrowed a cent. He went to a department store and asked to buy a television – on credit.

“They kinda laughed at me and told me to go to my credit union,” Updike said. “I had no idea there was such a thing.”

He went to the hospital’s credit union and left with a small loan to be paid back before his enlistment was over.

“They really understood who I was and I felt like I was part of the family,” he said. “I felt like this was sort of mine.”

Soon after, he was asked to volunteer on a credit union committee that approved or rejected loans. In just over a year on the committee, he said he helped approved plenty of loans that banks never would have.

“You had these young sailors, young families and no one’s going to make them a loan,” he said. “But the credit union, because we knew each other, we could take those risks. That was just absolutely invaluable in shaping how I look at things.”

From there, Updike started what’s now a 43-year career in credit unions.

He remembers the days before credit unions offered checking accounts and home loans. He’s worked as a teller, branch manager and even property appraiser.

He got his first chief executive job at a San Diego credit union before turning 30 – and without earning a college diploma.

And when he says he’s seen it all, it can be taken literally:

“At my first credit union, a member applied for a loan to purchase a mobile home and I was assigned the task of doing a physical appraisal,” he said. “I didn’t find out until I was already on site that the mobile home was located within a nudist colony.”

– James Rufus Koren

JIM UPDIKE, 65

Chief Executive

Honda Federal Credit Union, Torrance

YEARS IN POSITION: 26

RESIDENCE: Trabuco Canyon

FAMILY: Married to Sharon; three adult children.

ACTIVITIES: Yacht racing, scuba diving, skiing, golf.