Advancing the Cooperative Difference: Gesa Credit Union’s Don Miller Receives Summit Icon Award

Posted by Alyse Knudsen on October 21, 2026

Don Miller accepting the Summit Icon Award on Oct. 9

For 39 years, Don Miller has helped shape Gesa Credit Union and the communities it serves. From joining Gesa as a junior accountant in 1987 to becoming CEO in 2013, Miller has built a career grounded in integrity, member service and a belief that credit unions have a responsibility to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. At the GoWest Awards and Gala during MAXX 2026, he received the Summit Icon Award in recognition of a career that has strengthened his credit union, advanced the cooperative movement, and left a lasting mark on the industry.

Under Miller’s leadership, Gesa has grown from a $100 million institution to $6.7 billion in assets, serving approximately 320,000 members through 46 branches and nearly 1,000 team members. But the significance of his leadership extends beyond growth. Throughout his career, Miller has focused on listening to members, identifying unmet needs, and building programs and services that create lasting value for individuals and communities.

Leadership That Builds for the Future

GoWest President and CEO Troy Stang with Gesa Credit Union’s President and CEO Don Miller

Miller’s career at Gesa reflects a deep understanding of the institution from the ground up. After joining as a junior accountant, he advanced through executive roles as CFO, COO, and Chief Retail Officer before being named CEO. Since then, he has guided mergers and acquisitions, expanded Gesa’s reach into Oregon and Idaho, and developed new capabilities to serve members and businesses. In 2025, Gesa’s Commercial Banking division reached $1 billion in loans, while the launch of ValorFI Heroes extended digital credit union services nationwide to educators, firefighters, health care workers, law enforcement, veterans, and their supporters.

Miller’s approach to growth is rooted in building relationships that serve members throughout their lives. Gesa’s programs span financial education for high school students, first-time homebuyer lending, small-business financing, and community partnerships. In 2025, Gesa recorded its best year for home lending in its 73-year history, including 277 loans to first-time homebuyers. These efforts reflect Miller’s view that growth matters most when it expands access, meets real needs and strengthens the cooperative relationship between a credit union and its members.

Advocacy That Protects the Cooperative Difference

Don Miller understands that credit unions need a strong voice in public policy to continue serving their members and communities. He built Gesa’s advocacy function to help protect the legislative and regulatory environment that allows credit unions to operate for the benefit of members rather than shareholders. Under his direction, Gesa has engaged lawmakers through community tours, legislative events, and policy discussions, connecting public officials with tangible examples of credit unions’ impact.

Gesa’s advocacy has included work on credit union structure, information security standards and federal stablecoin frameworks, along with engagement on state legislation. In 2024, GoWest recognized Gesa with a Top of the Hill Award for its advocacy efforts.

Miller also serves on GoWest’s Governmental Affairs Committee (GAC), bringing 39 years of experience at one credit union and a perspective shaped by service across nearly every executive role. He consistently advocates for smaller credit unions that may lack the resources or platform to make their voices heard, helping ensure the broader cooperative movement remains part of important policy conversations.

Putting Members First When It Matters Most

For Miller, the credit union philosophy is more than a guiding principle; it is a responsibility to show up when members need help. During a federal government shutdown that left TSA agents and other federal workers across Gesa’s service area without paychecks for weeks, he recommended that Gesa offer affected members mortgage-payment relief and short-term loans to cover essential expenses. Gesa absorbed the cost because, in Don’s view, supporting working people through difficult circumstances is fundamental to being a credit union.

That same philosophy shapes how Gesa responds to emergencies and invests in future generations. When wildfires forced evacuations in the Spokane region earlier this year, Miller empowered his team to do what was right for members and communities, ensuring people could access their accounts, including certificates of deposit, without fees or delays.

He also helped grow Gesa’s High School Credit Union program, which received GoWest’s Outstanding Member Program Award in 2025. The program now includes 25 student-run branches across the Pacific Northwest. Approximately 150 students gain hands-on experience each year, while Gesa’s scholarship program has awarded $1.2 million since 1987. Both initiatives reflect Don’s commitment to helping people build financial knowledge, opportunity and security for the future.

Community Impact Beyond the Branch

His commitment to community extends to how Gesa approaches partnerships, philanthropy, and civic engagement. Miller has served on the boards of Junior Achievement, the Tri-Cities Regional Chamber and Currence, supporting workforce development, regional commerce, and cooperative payments infrastructure. He also holds partners to a clear standard: community relationships must deliver meaningful benefits, not simply visibility. When Gesa negotiated its naming-rights agreement with Washington State University, Miller challenged his team to ensure the partnership would support members, benefit the community, and create financial education opportunities for students.

That philosophy is reflected in all of Gesa’s community investments. Through its Affinity Debit Card Program, members directed $1.25 million to community causes in 2025, including schools, colleges, and environmental initiatives. Gesa also contributed $138,000 to fight hunger, while team members sorted nearly 39,000 pounds of food for local families. Across the year, employees contributed 9,464 community engagement hours in support of 476 partners.

A Legacy of Cooperative Leadership

The Summit Icon Award recognizes a career of sustained leadership and influence, and Miller’s impact is evident in both Gesa’s growth and the opportunities it creates for others. His leadership has helped advance financial education, expand access to lending, strengthen advocacy, and build partnerships that return value to communities.

“Don has selflessly dedicated nearly 40 years to Gesa and the broader Credit Union Movement,” shared Ben Alquist, AVP of Strategic Communications at Gesa. “He is one of the most passionate people I have known, personally and professionally, about making a lasting, meaningful difference for others. That commitment defines his leadership at Gesa, where he has built our cooperative around doing right by our members, our communities, and the team members who serve them every day.”

His commitment always begins with listening. A few years ago, during a community meeting in Eastern Washington, Miller heard a man say something he couldn’t forget: “I’ve never even heard my parents use the word retirement. It’s not something they’ve ever considered. It’s not an option.”

While Miller could not change that family’s circumstances directly, he could help build opportunities for the next generation. That conversation helped inspire programs that continue to serve students and communities today. It is a fitting reflection of the leadership behind the Summit Icon Award: a career defined not only by what Don Miller has built at Gesa, but by the people and communities better positioned for the future because of it.

Posted in Leadership, MAXX, Regional Member News, Top Headlines, Washington.