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When Russ Warner walks into OnPoint Community Credit Union‘s headquarters in Portland, Oregon, he sees an immediate change. As employees started making their way back to the office after the pandemic, he knew the workspace had to evolve. If people were making the effort to come into the office, the experience needed to be meaningful. Walls needed to come down. Collaboration and connection needed to be center stage. And cubicles, by and large, needed to go.
A large lounge area, open collaboration seating, and smaller one-on-one conference rooms for employees to meet or take calls appeared where walls used to be. Large windows let in natural light. The inviting space is one where employees can get some work done without feeling isolated.
“I walked in this morning and saw all these different groups of people sitting at different tables or up on barstools,” Warner says. “People were just mingling. Obviously, it’s mostly work related, but it’s so cool to see this plan you had in your head work out this well. People seem happy to come to work.”
Warner has been the corporate real estate and facilities manager at OnPoint Community Credit Union since 2016. The largest member-owned, community-focused credit union in Oregon and southwest Washington serves over 581,000 members and manages $9.4 billion in assets. At present, On Point has 57 branches open, with more on the way. The organization today is substantially larger than the one Warner came to in 2016.
In 2019, OnPoint’s leadership identified a significant growth opportunity. But as Warner prepared to put his team to work, the pandemic hit.
“We had to pause and be thoughtful about our next moves,” Warner explains. “We isolated the locations that we thought would be most beneficial to our members, based on our research and data.”
OnPoint’s growth has continued in spite of the pandemic. Warner’s team split the construction team into two separate groups with two separate project teams to ensure that neither team was overwhelmed with projects and both teams could narrow their scope. Warner praises both his internal teams and vendor partners, including a new architectural team OnPoint selected in 2019.
“Our partners are amazing,” Warner says. “We treat them like they’re OnPoint employees because they are so important to our members and employees’ experience.”
Warner began his career as an electrician. He’s dug his fair share of trenches for electrical conduit. He says his background makes him relatable to the people he leads today.
“I’m lucky I have amazing people around me,” the manager says. “My team understands that I will do anything for them, and that goes both ways.”
Warner has the same loyalty to OnPoint. He believes in what his organization represents. As a community credit union, OnPoint reinvests back into local communities and nonprofit partners like Meals on Wheels. For example, the OnPoint Community Credit Union Scholar Program, in partnership with the Oregon School Activities Association, provides a total of $40,000 in scholarships every year to six Oregon students with a minimum 3.5 GPA who participate in school activities.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to be part of an organization that for nearly a century has reinvested in our communities, making them a better place to call home,” Warner says.
As OnPoint continues to expand, Warner says that growth will never exceed its ability to grow smart. The manager says the organization’s priorities, like small business lending and community connection, will always come first. Warner and his organization actively create good in their communities while remaining financially sound. They aren’t doing good to offset anything else. And Warner sees the direct impact on the communities OnPoint serves.
P&C is a “full-service” general contractor specializing in community projects – police and fire stations, libraries, schools and parks – throughout Oregon and SW Washington. Our project teams strive to combine P&C’s established values with any new technologies or systems that can reduce our client’s cost and schedule. We are passionate about projects that will last, but we’re also interested in establishing and maintaining the relationships that make those projects special. We believe that it’s not enough to build something, that true success comes from building strong, long-lasting relationships with the teams we work with.
