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Synergent’s mission is to ‘help credit unions succeed and improve the financial lives of their members.’ In our monthly Employee Spotlight series, we feature one of our dedicated staff members to help you get to know the people who are working as an extension of your credit union team.
Ethan Letourneau
After initially discovering Synergent through a career fair at the University of New Hampshire, Ethan Letourneau, Business Support Specialist, became one of the organization’s first-ever interns. Four years and one pandemic college graduation later, he is thankful to have found a home with Synergent’s Business Development team.
“I started in the summer of 2019 as a Contract Specialist,” explained Letourneau. “It was just a fancy title for scanning paper contracts at the fax machine, but it did help me learn more about the services the contracts were for. Now I help create the contracts that I was scanning in as an intern.”
He describes a typical day as a Business Support Specialist as including sending out pricing authorizations through DocuSign to credit unions that have requested them; scheduling product demonstrations; troubleshooting issues with the Business Development team; creating proposals for credit unions for new core customers, renewals, digital banking, bill pay, and mobile deposit capture; and maintaining the contract database to ensure it is up to date.
“When I started working here, I primarily worked just with the pricing authorizations and our contract database,” said Letourneau. “For my first year, I was heavily involved in creating a contract database that held all of our credit union-facing contract information, including start dates, term lengths, auto-renewal dates, and termination dates. It was a lot of tedious work, but my team and I got it done, and we’re in a much better place now in terms of contract management. Once that was finished, I was able to branch out into the roles I have today.”
Of all the projects he has tackled while at Synergent, Letourneau is proudest of his work on the contract database project. He recalls the project as appearing daunting to him and his team at first, but through a lot of monotonous, repetitive work, they achieved an outcome they could be pleased with. Now, they are able to disperse accurate contract information to teams across the organization through a far easier process.
“As a Business Support Specialist, I work to provide support to teams that work in closer relation to credit unions,” said Letourneau. “Account Relationship Managers, the Sales team, and Customer Service depend on my team and I to send pricing authorizations to credit unions as quickly and efficiently as possible. The sooner a credit union can make a decision on implementing a product or service, the sooner their members can reap the benefits. Doing our best to support these teams allows them to provide more value to our credit unions.”
The Business Development Team
Letourneau is grateful for the chance he was given to intern leading into his senior year of college. The skills he gained and the exposure he encountered in a real-world work environment while making lasting relationships helped ease his mind when trying to figure out next steps after graduation.
“I wouldn’t say I chose this role, but really lucked into it,” explained Letourneau. “I graduated college in the spring of 2020, a notoriously bad time to enter the workforce. I was fortunate and grateful that Synergent offered me a job when my internship ended. What makes me stay here is the culture Synergent has created and the shared goal of service towards credit unions. The Business Development team is awesome; we’ve built great camaraderie over the past four years. Synergent as a whole is a friendly environment. I don’t think I’ve ever dreaded coming into work while here.”
He fondly remembers one particularly warm, sunny Wednesday in July when he was interning, as it was a lucky day where both the monthly masseuse and the weekly ice cream truck were visiting the office. He and his coworkers were treated to massages in the morning and ice cream in the afternoon!
“My favorite part of my job is working with my team,” said Letourneau. “While we are on the smaller side, we do a lot of great work to help credit unions. We’re cross-trained on each other’s roles so that when one of us is out others can step up in their place. We have a great rapport and that makes it easier for us to provide the services our credit unions need.”
Throughout his time at Synergent, he feels he has gained a lot of insights into the credit union industry and learned how technology is changing within the financial sector. He also has a better understanding of the importance of service, as “a positive interaction can change their outlook on you/the company as a whole,” and “brightens their day.”
“Outside of work, my hobbies include hiking, skiing, disc golfing, and watching sports,” shared Letourneau. “I’ve hiked 25 out of 48 New Hampshire 4,000 footers and am hoping to knock more off this summer. In the winter, I ski almost every weekend at Cannon Mountain, however this year I had the opportunity to do a week of skiing in the Italian Alps. I would love to go back. I’m also a big New England sports fan (Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox) and a fan of the English soccer team West Ham United.”
