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Expansion Abounds for Navy Credit Union

With completion of its third building near and construction of a fourth under way, the Navy Federal Credit Union has become a regional leader in both employment and the green building movement.

Navy Federal Credit Union building
Navy Federal Credit Union buildings are among the first in Florida designed to meet LEED gold standards.

The credit union, which operates from its 62-acre Heritage Oaks customer service campus, expects to finish the 165,000-sq.-ft. third building this fall, adding 300 workers to its current 1,110-employee payroll. Salaries at the firm average $40,000. The fourth building, at 265,000 square feet, will be completed in 2011 and will bring NFCU’s total Pensacola investment to $225 millionwith 3,000 employees and 630,000 square feet.

“We love the labor market here,’’ says Pensacola-based Jamie McDonald, assistant vice president. Wages and cost of living are lower in north Florida than in northern Virginia, where there’s little room for expansion. And “there are good, quality employees here,’’ says McDonald. When recruiters sought to fill 45 initial jobs in 2003, they received 1,200 applications.

Amy Hughes, a supervisor of recruiting for NFCU worldwide, was one of those first employees. Her job then was to coach other new hires. “When I started, there were 15 of us ... (in) a pretty much empty building, and only the call center came here to begin with. Now we have collections, recruiters ... each department has grown. We service worldwide from here.’’

All four credit union buildings are designed to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold standards, among the first in Florida. Workstations have individual climate controls, and three-story walls of glass provide views of the surrounding woods.

“We’re building 40-year buildings,’’ says McDonald. “We think it will save money in the long run.”

Navy Federal Credit Union

  • Headquarters: Vienna, Va.
  • Membership: 3 millionworld’s largest member-owned credit union
  • Assets: $34.2 billion as of Jan. 30, up 25% from a year ago
  • Employees: 7,200