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The Five Minute Read highlights things to do, places to go and people to know in the Greater Lowell area. Have news to share? Send it to news@lowellsun.com.
Originally Published:
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Melanie Gilbert
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LOWELL — Every quarter, Jeanne d’Arc Credit Union’s We Share a Common Thread Foundation donates $1,500 to a worthy nonprofit through its “Give a Click” program. The organization with the most votes wins the grant. Cast your vote for one of these three organizations: The Friends of the Pollard Memorial Library, Home Health & Hospice Care and Methuen Memorial Music Hall.
Readers can give a click at jdcu.org/community-about/our-foundation/give-a-click, which features videos about the nonprofits featured this quarter and an online ballot. Once voting closes, votes from the same IP address will be reviewed for legitimacy in order to keep voting fair for all nominees. Voting ends June 30.
CHELMSFORD — Save the date for the fashion and Fido fundraiser Divas and Dogs on the Runway, Thursday, April 25, from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Chelmsford Elks, 300 Littleton Road.
Admission is $35 per person and includes music, appetizers and a silent auction and raffle. A cash bar also will be available. Tickets can be purchased at chelmsfordgardenclub.org/events/#divas or on Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Mary Donnellan Interiors, 2 Central Square.
The event is sponsored by the Chelmsford Garden Club, and the funds raised are used in town beautification projects such as the Chelmsford Public Garden, the Red Wing Pollinator Garden, as well as providing financial support for Chelmsford student scholarships, the Newhouse Wildlife Rescue and the Chelmsford Open Space Stewardship, which maintains the town’s conservation lands.
For more information, email ChelmsfordMAGardenClub@gmail.com.
DRACUT — Mike Baird, a well known local birder, will guide his annual spring bird walk at Yapp Farm on Saturday, April 27 at 8 a.m., 650 Marsh Hill Road.
Baird has more than two decades of experience as a birdwatcher. The Dracut Open Space Committee hosts two bird watching events a year. The second event is in the fall.
Participants should bring binoculars and dress for the early morning weather. For more information, call 978-452-7924.
LOWELL — Coffee and Cotton presents “Unexpected Things,” by artist Michelle Ward, fourth floor of Mill No. 5, 250 Jackson St., through the end of the month.
Ward works in acrylic, using various tools and techniques in her paintings to explore the natural world.
For hours of operation, visit millno5.com/coffeeandcotton, call 978-925-2626 or email coco@millno5.com.
TYNGSBORO — Senior citizens and other residents with mobility or transportation challenges can sign up for shuttle service to and from the May 7 annual Town Meeting.
To take advantage of this free service, residents must register by April 30 to enable the town to plan the route to and from the event. Residents using this service will receive an estimated morning pickup time at their homes. At the conclusion of Town Meeting, they will be dropped off. There will be no return rides before the Town Meeting is over.
To participate, contact the Council on Aging at 978-649-9211 or visit the center at 169 Westford Road. If there are no registrations by May 1, this service will be canceled for this meeting.
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Melanie Gilbert
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LOWELL — After 17 years at the helm, Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union CEO Mark Cochran announced last month that he will retire from his role later this summer.
Cochran, 65, first joined Jeanne D’Arc in 2007 after being tapped to replace outgoing President and CEO Paul Mayotte. He came to Lowell, knowing little about the area at the time, after serving as executive vice president and CEO of Affinity Federal Credit Union in New Jersey.
“I realized that Jeanne D’Arc had a great presence in the city of Lowell, but there was more that we could do,” said Cochran.
What stood out to him as he began to learn more about the city were the roots that Jeanne D’Arc and its executives had in Lowell.
“There is a legacy of board members with multiple generations on the board, and they explained to me the importance of being in the Acre,” said Cochran.
When he arrived, Jeanne D’Arc was headquartered in another building in the Acre neighborhood that has since been torn down after they moved to their new headquarters at 1 Tremont Place.
In the place of the old building, construction is ongoing for Acre Crossing. When construction is complete, which is expected this spring, the property will be home to both a Jeanne D’Arc operations center and 32 new units of affordable condominium housing, retail space and a parking garage.
A credit union operates similar to a bank, with the difference being that credit unions are nonprofit entities that often operate on a smaller scale with specific missions in mind. In the case of Jeanne D’Arc, Cochran said that mission has always been to benefit residents of Greater Lowell who have lower incomes.
“The business part of it is that we are continuing to grow so much that we need space. The housing part of it is to continue our mission of helping people with modest means,” said Cochran. “This is a unique program that gives them homeownership, it is not a rental, and it is only for people who qualify based on income.”
Cochran, who was also named the CEO of the Year in 2022 by the Cooperative Credit Union Association, said he just felt that it was time for him to retire, both for himself and for the continued success of Jeanne D’Arc.
“I’m healthy, the credit union is doing very well, and I felt like I would rather go out on top,” said Cochran. “I think there is an excellent leadership team in place at the credit union, and a really in-tune board that is going to make a wise selection for the new CEO. I would rather just do it while I can, rather than wait until I’m in a wheelchair and they have to wheel me out of here.”
He said he has little in the way of specific retirement plans, beyond traveling more to Florida and New Jersey to spend time with his daughter and granddaughter.
In his time at Jeanne D’Arc, Cochran said he is most proud of the people he has developed and worked with.
“It is rewarding to me to see people really fulfill their heart’s desire. We consciously hire people with what we call a heart to serve,” said Cochran. “Seeing people fulfill that, be all that they can be, even in leadership levels they understand what the importance of the credit union is and its place in the community and how to make it relevant.”
Jeanne D’Arc Executive Board Chair Naomi Prendergast was not on the board when Cochran was first brought on, but joined it soon after in 2008.
“Mark has been a tremendous leader for Jeanne D’Arc in both an internal and external way,” said Prendergast.
Within the company, she pointed to the 48% rise in staffing levels since Cochran’s arrival, while the membership base more than doubled. Jeanne D’Arc’s assets have also risen from $600 million to $2.1 billion in that time.
“He has also just become a fabric of this community, through his support of other boards and local nonprofits, and through the We Share A Common Thread Foundation, which helps us raise money for other nonprofits,” said Prendergast. “The Board of Directors greatly appreciates Mark’s work over the years.”
In addition to the increase in assets, Jeanne D’Arc has also added four new branches in Dracut, Westford, Nashua and Methuen since Cochran was hired.
Board Vice President John Chemaly was on the board and the search committee when Cochran was chosen as CEO, and said Cochran was the best out of a pool of “very admirable candidates.”
“We were very lucky to have had four or five candidates who would have done a great job themselves, but Mark was just head and shoulders above the rest,” said Chemaly. “He promised us at the time, when we were a $600 million credit union, that he would get us to over $1 billion. Not only did he do that, he brought us to more than $2 billion.”
Chemaly said it was Cochran’s “passion and experience” as a credit union CEO that stood out to him over the other candidates when the board made the decision to hire him.
“We thought he could bring that expertise to Lowell, and to Jeanne D’Arc and the community at large. He made Jeanne D’Arc relevant in the community for our members,” said Chemaly. “He was an outsider that stepped into the role of an insider, and he has really married this community, and the community has married him.”
As Jeanne D’Arc looks to decide who will be the next CEO, Chemaly said they are ideally looking for “someone like Mark.”
The board is employing executive search and leadership development firm DDJ Myers to assist Jeanne D’Arc in its search for the next CEO, a process that will include both internal and external candidates.
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Peter Currier
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