Chad Durkee is putting his major into motion,… and he hasn’t even graduated yet.
The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh College of Business accounting student submitted an audition video with the hopes he’d become CitizensFirst Credit Union’s “NextGen Champion” — an outreach and social-media specialist and guru of sorts to help empower CitizensFirst’s young-adult members with financial smarts and savvy.
The subject matter is right up Durkee’s alley, connecting directly to his field of study and academic major at UW Oshkosh. He won the opportunity.
“We don’t want it to be all about finance, and our team at CitizensFirst Credit Union will work with the Champion to help him establish his social voice,” said Bryce Roth, director of cooperative outreach at CitizensFirst. “He will serve a year term and also come to credit union events to help us remain relevant to young people.”
“Our Champion will be the spokesperson for the 25-and-under crowd in Oshkosh, Fond du Lac and our other markets,” Roth said. “The Champion gets an Apple computer and iPhone so that they can great blogs, vlogs and manage their own social channels geared at young adults. The Champion will talk about being a young person in Wisconsin and incorporate some information about personal finance. An example might be where college students can find deals for lunch or dinner without going broke or how to budget during the week so that they can take someone on a date on the weekend.”
The credit union’s NextGen and marketing team surprised Durkee with the news that he’d won the contest on Dec. 2., interrupting (with a bit of backstage permission, of course) one of his finance classes in UW Oshkosh’s Sage Hall.
Here’s the moment, and Durkee’s reaction, as it happened…
Learn more: