Face to face, screen to screen, Fox aims to keep it personal

Lori Kaye Lodes

Contributor

July 28, 2025

BELLEVUE – Development is booming along the Monroe Road corridor in the Village of Bellevue, which includes the construction of Fox Communities Credit Union’s 23rd branch – following a mid-June groundbreaking.

Melanie Draheim, chief marketing officer at Fox, said the site will mark Fox’s second Bellevue location, bringing the Greater Green Bay presence to five with additional locations in Green Bay, West De Pere and De Pere.

Draheim said the Village of Bellevue’s new, 4,400-square-foot brick-and-mortar location at the corner of Town Hall and Monroe roads in Bellevue will employ seven to 10 employees when it opens in spring 2026.

“We plan to make [the branch] a hub in that area, supporting not just Bellevue but Green Bay and the broader surrounding communities,” she said. “This is a really up-and-coming area that’s growing, and we want to be as convenient as we can for our members.”

Draheim said the branch will feature both in-office and drive-thru access, as well as the full complement of services – from loans to checking and savings accounts to business banking – for which Fox is known.

The only difference members may notice within this location versus others, she said, is the higher number of offices used for one-on-one consultative conversations.

“Even with the advancements we’ve made in technology, we still see the physical location playing an important role, though there has been a shift in why,” she said. “Whereas members used to come in for basic transactions, they can do so much in the app today that they come in less for that but more for personalized plans and solutions, one-on-one conversations and financial guidance.”

Fox as a whole, Draheim said, offers more than 40 certified credit union financial counselors who have deep financial expertise and can help members in many different financial situations.

“We want to meet people where they are,” she said. “We have some members who want to come in all the time and others who want to do everything online. The good majority are in the middle somewhere – it’s about finding balance to meet people where they are and to offer convenience.” 

Steady growth

Financial education, Draheim said, is a priority for the credit union as part of its mission to partner with members, communities and the Fox family to build stronger financial futures.

That number, she said, is growing.

In 2024, Draheim said Fox surpassed 130,000 consumer members, nearly 8,000 business members (with some overlap between consumer and business membership) and recently reached $3 billion in assets.

“We have a strong overlap between our retail and business members,” she said. “A lot of the reason people choose us for their business needs is that they have personal accounts with us –  or vice versa – know and trust our [team members] and want to have everything in one place.”

Draheim said Fox is now ranked the ninth-largest credit union among more than 100 credit unions in the state.

That’s quite a trajectory, she said, for a financial institution that began in 1937 as the Combined Locks Credit Union.

Over its 87 years (and counting), Draheim said Fox established its first stand-alone branch in 1980, as well as welcomed long-tenured President Greg Hilbert.

She said the credit union rebranded as Fox in 1987, added a second location in 1989, added many more locations since and celebrated Hilbert’s retirement in 2020.

The credit union’s steady growth in the years since, Draheim said she attributes to the new president at the helm – Chris Allen.

Draheim said Allen was the driving factor in Fox’s digital growth, as well as growing the credit union’s footprint. 

“The way we look at it is, it’s not about [having] a physical location or digital [presence], but physical and digital [availability],” Draheim said.

That is just one example of the Fox difference that Draheim said all team members strive to deliver, day in and day out.

She said she describes it as building a genuine relationship with each member that is focused on understanding what they truly want so they can provide what members need, when they need it.

“Everything we do is designed to make things better for our members,” she said. “Whether it’s in person or on the phone, we want to listen so someone feels heard and understood. We want to help them achieve what they’re trying to do.”

That help often takes financial forms, but Draheim said it extends to communities as well.

Though the sponsorships, donations, partnerships, programming and sharing of time and talent varies in each community, she said the commitment is there.

Last year, Draheim said team members donated 9,341 volunteer hours to causes they and their communities were passionate about.In addition, she said Fox invested $968,192 into its communities and partnered with 294 local organizations.
“We’re a not-for-profit, member cooperative, and whatever we bring in through loans and deposits, we put back into our communities, be it in better rates, financial solutions or community support,” she said. “We want to partner with our members and communities to build stronger financial futures individually and as a broader region.”