The 1950s: O Bee Begins
It all started with an idea and a whole lot of “jaw boning.” In 1955, Ted McGill, a brewery worker with a big vision, convinced his fellow employees at the Olympia Brewing Company to start their own credit union. On February 15, 1955, O Bee Credit Union was born, chartered as the Olympia Brewing Company Employees and Families Credit Union—though Ted quickly shortened the name to “O Bee” to save himself from writing the long version 40 million times. He and his wife, Vi, set aside their dining room table as the first “branch.” At night, when Ted got home from the brewery, he and Vi would post the books and make the necessary deposits.
These early years were a time of optimism in the United States. In 1955, the average home price was just $10,950, and gas cost a mere $0.23 a gallon. Families gathered around new black-and-white TVs to watch I Love Lucy, while Elvis Presley brought rock ‘n’ roll into American living rooms with his 1956 debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was also the decade of big innovations, with the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC I, changing the way businesses operated (the computer famously predicted Dwight D. Eisenhower's landslide victory in the 1952 U.S. presidential election).
By 1958, the brewery donated office space at 316 Schmidt Place, giving the credit union its first home outside Ted’s dining room. With $70,000 in shares and 390 Members by the end of 1955, O Bee was off to a strong start. It was a time of grassroots growth, grit, and elbow grease—values that still define O Bee today.