LorMet Community Credit Union marks 90 years of financial service

In 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, nine steel mill workers at The National Tube Company's Lorain Works pooled their money to create a collective fund to loan money to their fellow workers and neighbors. That initial investment would grow to one day become the LorMet Community Federal Credit Union, which on Saturday invited the community to join in celebrating its 90th anniversary of financial service in Lorain County. LorMet President and CEO Daniel Cwalina said that those initial National Tube investors gathered $14,000 — about $320,000 in today's money — and by the end of 1936, they had lent out all of it. "It demonstrated the need for a people-first financial institution," Cwalina said. "Lorain is a culturally diverse powerhouse, and that is what we represent. We kept our founders' philosophy in place, and we are more than an organization of dollars. We are an organization of people. Today, LorMet holds over $280 million in deposits, we have over 19,000 members and we have survived for 90 years, through all the economic challenges over decades. That is what we are celebrating." Cwalina said that in marking its own history, LorMet was also celebrating the history of industry in Lorain and the cultural melting pot that powered that industry. "We are celebrating the diversity of Lorain County, the cultural heritage," he said. "When you see some of the old photographs, you will see the employment office at the steel mill had nine languages on the side of the building. It brought people from all over the world, and that is what we are celebrating. That is who we represent." The employees of LorMet themselves worked on the 90th anniversary celebration, pulling historical pictures and information to craft a timeline of the history of the credit union and more broadly of the industry in Lorain County from which it sprang. Cwalina said the creation of that timeline would have been impossible without the Lorain Public Library System and its Albert Doane Collection archive. Many of the photographs that were used in LorMet's timeline were digitally scanned for the first time ever as a part of the research for the 90th anniversary celebration. Cwalina said LorMet remains connected to the community it serves by giving back to organizations like the Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio and The Chronicle-Telegram's Not-Forgotten Box. "When the Not-Forgotten Box was short this year, we stepped up," he said. "We give back to our community, and that is the difference when you have a true community financial institution. And we are a financial cooperative, we cannot be sold. So we are going to be here for another 90 years, doing what we do." Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.