heart-centered | Cover story | insightonbusiness.com

By Amelia Compton Wolff

Photographs by Shane Van Boxtel, Image Studios

As a high school sophomore, Laurie Butz sat at her family’s kitchen table while her mother cut her hair.

It was a regular occurrence — her family certainly didn’t have the money for something as frivolous as a trip to the salon. But on this particular evening, Butz was about to make a declaration that might just blow everything up: She was going to college.

Butz’s mother was a bartender, her father an auto mechanic. There was no talk of higher education in their family growing up, mostly because no one had ever gone. But by the time Butz was a sophomore in high school, she had already made up her mind that an education would be her ticket to a more secure future.

“My parents lived pretty much paycheck to paycheck,” Butz says. “It was early on that I knew I didn’t want to live like that.”

Butz can’t explain why she chose to tell her parents then, but she vividly remembers her mother behind her with the scissors; her father sat at the head of the table reading the newspaper that completely covered his face.

“I tell my mom I’m going to college … and she lost it with me,” Butz says. “She used some colorful language to basically say, no, that is ridiculous. No girl should go to college. Find yourself a sugar daddy and have babies.”

Butz waited for her father to say something, anything, but he held the paper firmly and never lowered it for a second.

“Right then and there, I knew I had to find a way to go to college,” Butz says. “I was going to be independent and never count on anyone financially.”

Butz, who has been president and CEO of Capital Credit Union since 2021, is the first to admit that her career path has been anything but linear (“I was off-road more times than I was on the path,” she says), but after receiving some tough feedback from a respected colleague eight years ago, her leadership journey took a much more intentional direction.

“I used to show up how I thought people wanted me to. That’s exhausting,” she says. “How I show up as a leader today is very different from years ago.”

Dreaming bigger

From her office inside Capital Credit Union’s newly remodeled Morris Avenue branch in Green Bay, Butz points out the sweeping floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Lambeau Field to a gas station that sits in the stadium’s shadows.

“That was Mike’s Mini Mart at the time. That’s where I worked,” Butz says, recounting the various jobs she worked to pay for college.

The Green Bay native worked through high school, and by the time she graduated she had scraped together enough to pay for one semester at UW-Stevens Point.

“At the end of the semester, I was out of money and couldn’t afford the second semester, so I went back home a bit defeated given I was an A student, but had no money,” Butz says. “No financial institution would give me any money because you had to have somebody sign for you and no one would sign for me.”

Undeterred, Butz kept working and with a loan from her boyfriend-now-husband, Dennis, she had enough to eventually return to school. Her job at Employers Health offered tuition reimbursement, which allowed Butz to leverage the loan even further, applying it toward each subsequent semester.

“I got to a point where I was ahead, I was paying [Dennis] back and educational assistance programs from my employers paid the rest of my entire undergraduate and master’s degrees,” says Butz, who earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an HR management emphasis from UW-Green Bay and a master’s degree in organizational behavior from UW Oshkosh.

Seeing Butz today, it’s hard to imagine that high school sophomore getting her hair cut in her family’s kitchen or the college hopeful putting just enough gas in her car — $3 worth — for the trip between work and home. But a glimmer of that girl is still perceptible when she talks about the power that education has had in her life.

“If I didn’t have the access to education, I wasn’t going to get out of the perpetual cycle of living paycheck to paycheck that my parents faced trying to raise four kids. Education was pivotal,” she says. “It gave me access to organizations where I grew my career.”

And grow her career, she did. Butz has steadily built a career in leadership and organizational development, holding senior roles across insurance, business-process outsourcing and financial services. Her journey has included leading human resources teams, guiding investment and insurance service strategies, and overseeing organizational development initiatives.

After she joined Capital CU in November 2021, one of Butz’s first priorities was ensuring the organization offered educational reimbursement for not only employees, but the children of employees as well.

“If my mom had worked here, she could have helped me go to college,” Butz says. “It’s about helping that next generation. That’s really important to me.”

‘Someone’s precious child’

Butz’s leadership journey took a turn about eight years ago when a colleague delivered feedback that stung: She was leading in a way that came across as self-serving.

The words were difficult to hear, but they sparked a deep period of self-reflection and, ultimately, a pivotal shift in her leadership style.

“I’d been trying to win — win at college, win the job — but it was all independent winning. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the value of collective winning and winning as a team,” Butz says. “I cared about people, but I wasn’t showing up as a caring leader.”

That turning point led Butz to connect with Bob Chapman, CEO and owner of Paper Converting Machine Company, a Barry-Wehmiller company. He is also co-founder of the Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities and author of “Everybody Matters.” Chapman has served as a mentor and coach ever since, helping Butz realign her leadership around empathy and authenticity.

At the time, Butz was achieving outward success. Internally, she felt frustrated and unfulfilled.

“Laurie happened to be extremely talented, very involved in the community, but yet was not experiencing fully the joy of leadership,” Chapman says. “The Laurie I met eight years ago was no different than Laurie today; she just has the tools now.”

Butz’s transformation began with a simple idea Chapman shared: “Everyone you lead is someone’s precious child.” As mother to her daughter Allison, Butz was able to appreciate the sentiment deeply.

“That made sense to me. Bob’s message to me was about care and that it started with me,” says Butz. “With the idea that everyone you’re leading is someone’s precious child, I could show up differently with that care.”

Butz’s personal development journey has shaped Capital CU’s organizational culture. Last year Capital CU was selected for the Chapman Foundation’s Caring Workplace Partnership program, which helps organizations foster workplace cultures based on trust and care. Today every Capital CU team member is working to complete “Our Community Listens,” a three-day course that teaches participants communication and relationship skills, and the two-day “Our Community Serves” course.

“Introducing the Chapman Foundation and those teachings to our organization has been transformational,” says Tammy Williams, chief culture officer at Capital CU. “Laurie knows how transformational it was for her, and now we’re transforming Capital Credit Union and all the people here.”

Williams, who has worked in credit unions for more than 26 years, says the cultural shift at Capital CU can be seen in the company’s employee engagement and turnover rates. Employee turnover went from 23% in 2021 down to 15% in 2024. Capital CU’s employee engagement score was 60% in 2021. Last year it grew to a whopping 86%.

“I’ve been part of organizations before and you don’t see those types of engagements,” Williams says. “We’re proud of the efforts and initiatives, but the results really talk.”

Butz is also working with the Chapman Foundation to bring the Caring Communities teaching into K-12 classrooms in Green Bay.

“Laurie’s initiative to bring these classes to every member of her team is a bold move,” Chapman says. “But Laurie’s goal is much bigger than just the credit union; it’s to be an example in Northeast Wisconsin of what leadership could be.”

The credit union difference

Capital CU has a 91-year history of growth and innovation. Founded in 1934 as Kimberly Credit Union, Capital CU began by serving Kimberly-Clark employees and their families from an office inside the company’s paper mill. The credit union transitioned to a community charter in 1970, broadening its reach beyond the single employer. It was rebranded in 1996 as Capital Credit Union.

A turning point in the company’s history was its merger with Pioneer Credit Union, Green Bay’s first credit union established in 1927. At the time, it was the largest credit union merger in Wisconsin. Over its life, Pioneer Credit Union had expanded through a series of mergers with other local credit unions, so when it merged with Capital CU on July 1, 2014, it formed a combined institution with just over $1 billion in assets.

Butz says one of the key differences between banks and credit unions is that while banks are for-profit institutions owned by shareholders, credit unions are not-for-profit organizations owned by members.

“That is really what makes the credit union difference special,” Butz says. “We are not-for-profit; we don’t experience the same tug and pull that banks have. That is why it is so vital that credit unions retain their non-tax status. It allows us to put the people first. It isn’t about profits or shareholders, it is about being here for all, regardless of profitability.”

Butz took the lead on establishing Capital CU’s vision, which is “to inspire financial well-being for all through access, care and collaboration.”

Today Capital CU offers products and services designed to help people build or establish credit, consolidate debt or access banking services for the first time. For instance, Capital CU offers a Fresh Start checking account for those recovering from financial setbacks and is one of only a few financial institutions that allow the use of homeless shelter addresses to open accounts.

“Often there are complaints and headlines of our tax status being under attack, but the reality is, as a not-for-profit organization, we can serve the underserved, the underbanked, those rejected by the big banks,” she says.

That focus on financial inclusion goes hand in hand with Capital CU’s broader mission of community impact and sustainable growth.

“In the 10 years since the [Pioneer Credit Union] merger, we were able to nearly triple in size, now sitting at $2.7 billion [in assets],” says Butz. “We gave over $600,000 to community nonprofit organizations this last year and we want to continue to increase that number, so growth is critical.”

Paying it forward

With knowledge as one of its core values, Capital CU is working to close gaps in financial literacy. More than 32,000 individuals have participated in the credit union’s financial education programs.

According to the 2024 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index, financial literacy in the United States is 48% and has hovered around that mark for the last eight years. That means Americans correctly answered only about 50% of financial literacy questions on areas such as earnings, savings, insuring and comprehending risk.

“I think sometimes we underestimate the impact of financial education which can reduce financial stress and anxiety,” Butz says. “Research as recent as 2023 has shown that 88% of high school graduates did not feel prepared on how to handle money in the real world.”

Through a partnership with UW-Green Bay and its High School College Class program, Capital CU is bringing financial education to high school students and college freshmen and reached 250 students last year alone. Nearly 300 adults and 459 children have accessed education through Greenlight, Capital CU’s financial literacy app that was implemented in 2024.

Capital CU shares a deep partnership with the YMCAs of Greater Green Bay and the Fox Cities. Since 2023 that partnership has included free financial education classes that have reached nearly 500 individuals. Topics have included budgeting, understanding credit scores, classes for first-time home buyers, investing, avoiding fraud and navigating Medicare. Sessions have been offered in English, Spanish and most recently Hmong.

Butz says over its 91-year history, Capital Credit Union has continuously evolved to meet the needs of its members — not only through products and services, but by empowering them to reimagine what’s possible.

“What it looks like and how it is done will evolve over time, but I want people to know that Capital Credit Union isn’t here to make a profit, we aren’t here to beat out the big banks,” she says. “We are here to give people hope, to show them what the possibilities are. And that is different for everyone. We are here to partner with like-minded businesses and organizations to strengthen our community.”

Butz herself has witnessed great change in the world of finance just in her lifetime — she was eight years old when women were first able to apply for loans and credit cards in their own names. While there is still progress to be made — women make up less than 10% of financial institution CEOs — Butz believes the possibilities are endless.

“Now to stand up as the CEO of a financial institution,” she says, “I just say dream big, because there are all kinds of possibilities out there.”

Capital Credit Union

President & CEO: Laurie Butz

What it does: Full-service credit union with 24 branches and digital banking services, offering investments as well as lending and deposit products for business owners and serving 124,000 member-owners throughout Northeast Wisconsin

Founded: 1934

Headquarters: Green Bay

Employees: 500

Total assets: $2.7 billion

capitalcu.com