Historic Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS
FIREMEN’S
FEDERAL
CREDIT UNION
✧
Above: The New Orleans Firemen’s Federal
Credit Union serves the New Orleans Fire
Department plus over two hundred other
select employee groups.
Below: The corporate headquarters for the
New Orleans Firemen’s Federal Credit
Union is located at 4401 West Napoleon
Avenue in Metairie, Louisiana.
The New Orleans Firemen’s Federal Credit
Union began in 1934, in a small room behind
the New Orleans Fire Department’s Central
Station. Today it is a successful, stable and
growing financial institution with over $65
million in assets and more than two hundred
Select Employee Groups in addition to the
New Orleans Fire Department. The corporate
office is located at 4401 West Napoleon
Avenue in Metairie, Louisiana.
The New Orleans Firemen’s Federal Credit
Union proudly holds the sixth charter issued
to a federal credit union in the United States
and will celebrate its seventieth year of
operation in October 2004. “The key to our
success is that we have never forgotten that
our mission is to serve our members. Our
members’ financial needs are our primary
concern, and we take pride in the fact that we
listen when our members, our owners, talk.”
said NOFFCU President Donald Bock.
“In 1934, when the credit union was
organized for New Orleans firemen,” Bock
added, “firemen had it twice as difficult.
Starting wages were only $85 per month for a
72-hour week. Being in a high-risk job made
lenders shy even further away.”
“Six or seven people put up a few dollars
each to start the credit union,” Bock reports.
“For years, the credit union operated out of a
room in New Orleans Central Fire Station
with one full-time person and three or four
part-time people.”
In 1980, when Bock became the president
of NOFFCU, it had $3 million in assets. In
the twenty years since, it has grown to
over $65 million in assets and serves
17,000 members, with 5 full-service centers,
located in Orleans, Jefferson, St. James, and
St. Tammany Parishes.
“Over the years, our membership has
expanded to include several Select Employee
Groups and has become a full service financial
institution with twenty-four hour access,” says
Chief Executive Officer Judy DeLucca. “As a
full service institution we help our members
by giving them an option to the banking
industry. With a multitude of products to offer,
our goal is to become the primary financial
institution to all of our members. We want
them to think of us as family—the entity they
turn to when they need help.”
In President Lyndon Johnson’s words, “We
labor to increase the total abundance of all…
by pursuing the growth of all, we advance the
welfare of each.”
HISTORIC LOUISIANA
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