Our Story
Started by the people who powered the valley.
Members of IBEW Local 558 chartered this credit union in 1958. It's still owned by the union families it serves.
Chartered by workers in
1958
Photo: NASA / Marshall Space Flight Center
When Sputnik 1 beeped across American skies in October 1957, national anxiety turned to panic. Two months later, the Navy’s Vanguard rocket exploded on live television. The Cold War was losing ground, and the country was running out of time.
The answer came from the spinning turbines in the Tennessee Valley.
Scientists had the math, but IBEW Local 558 had built the infrastructure. Working brutal shifts at Redstone Arsenal, union electricians pulled miles of control cable into blockhouses, wired precision telemetry, and built the test stands that shook the valley. On January 31, 1958, their work launched Explorer 1, saving America’s space program and eventually pushing humanity all the way to the Moon.
Yet on the ground, banks still refused to treat these trade workers fairly. Electricians faced erratic pay cycles with furious, high-overtime pushes followed by unpaid gaps between jobs. This made traditional loans nearly impossible to get and left them more vulnerable to loan sharks.
Later that same momentous year, Local 558 members also took their financial survival into their own hands. They pooled their wages and chartered the Electrical Workers No. 558 Federal Credit Union.
While their craftsmanship powered humanity’s way to the stars, their collective savings built a bedrock of security for their families back home.
Our history
Financial cooperation among the workers that built this valley.
The credit union’s story begins 40 years before it was founded, when the Tennessee Valley was still rural farmland with its flooding, treacherous Muscle Shoals rapids along the river. But over just a few decades, electrical workers would play a crucial part in transforming the Valley into the forefront of American innovation.
1918
IBEW Local 558 is established
World War I brought two government nitrate plants to the Shoals, built to make explosives for the war. On February 28, 1918, days after the plant broke ground, the electricians building it were chartered as IBEW Local 558 and thus began the incredible journey of transforming the Valley.
1920s–30s
Powering the Valley
Local 558 members wired Wilson Dam and all the TVA dams that followed. Their hydroelectric power brought jobs and industry to a valley of small farms.
1940s
From farm country to the Moon
From the 1940s through the late 1950s, the hands of Local 558 electricians continued to reshape the entire region. Across the Valley, they strung the power lines, built the TVA hydroelectric dams, and wired the sprawling aluminum smelters, paper mills, and chemical plants that fueled the nation. At Redstone Arsenal, they built the high-power facilities that first served the military and later powered the birth of American rocketry. In less than a lifetime, their craft helped propel North Alabama from rural farmland to the forefront of global technology.
1958
Our start
Electrical Workers No 558 Federal Credit Union is chartered
As the Tennessee Valley becomes the epicenter of aerospace and rocket development, the members of IBEW Local 558 chartered a credit union of their own so union families could save and borrow with each other.
2007
The move to East 17th Street
For years, the credit union worked out of a double-wide trailer across from the old union hall. When the Local moved to East 17th Street in 2007, the credit union moved into its own building next door.
Today
Still member-owned
Today, the credit union continues to serve the incredible electrical workers of the Tennessee Valley who keep our lights on despite bad weather and power our future.
“[A line or two from a longtime member, in their own words: why they’ve stayed with the credit union.]”
[Name] · Member since [year]
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We were made to provide service and value to you, our members. Join us, and let us help you build a financial future to last.