Tim Lyons
Tim Lyons serves as chairman of the Temple Foundation, which seeks to meet the health, welfare and education needs of children in the Tulsa metropolitan area. Tim Lyons began his service to Temple Foundation as one of its founding members, originally serving as treasurer. Tim Lyons is the president and CEO of TTCU Federal Credit Union. TTCU is the second largest credit union in Oklahoma, with $2 billion in assets and seventeen branches across northeastern Oklahoma. TTCU serves over 135,000 members, counting in its membership teachers, school employees, students and their family members, as well as employees from more than 500 companies.
Only the seventh president in TTCU’s 85 year history, Tim was named CEO in 2011. Tim has overseen the credit union’s rapid growth, opening six new branches and a 90,000 square foot corporate headquarters in south Tulsa. The beautifully-designed, modern headquarters has allowed TTCU to expand its back office functionality and recruit new talent. Tim also instituted Leadership Bootcamps to build the next generation of credit union leaders.
Under Tim, TTCU has continued to be a leader in supporting education in Oklahoma. In 2016, TTCU spearheaded Support our Schools, which generated over $2.8 million for Oklahoma school districts. Tim also worked to start the School Pride® debit card program, where a percentage of each transaction is donated back to the schools, resulting in over $1 million donated to local school districts since the program’s inception. In 2017, Tim was awarded the Spirit of Innovation award from the Foundation for Tulsa Schools.
During his TTCU career, Tim also spearheaded TTCU’s efforts to make FoolProof, an online financial literacy curriculum, available at no charge to all Oklahoma schools. To date, more than 125,000 Oklahoma high school students have participated in this program. He also encouraged an initiative to reach out to the Hispanic population and incorporate Spanish-language speakers into TTCU’s front-line operations. In 2019, TTCU received the Juntos Avanzamos (Together We Advance) designation from the Cornerstone Credit Union League awarded to credit unions that are committed to serving Hispanic and immigrant communities by providing education and services to improve financial well-being.
Tim has worked at TTCU for thirty years. After graduating from Oral Roberts University in 1982 and earning his CPA, Tim began his professional career in public accounting. He started with TTCU in 1989 serving as Controller and then Chief Financial Officer before becoming CEO.
Tim is a strong believer in the credit union movement and has served on a number of boards and committees for industry organizations, including Oklahoma Credit Union Foundation, Credit Union Service Centers of Oklahoma, Cornerstone Credit Union League and the Federal Reserve Tenth District Payments Advisory Group. In 2016, he was awarded the Troy Higgins Political Activist of the Year from OCUPAC for his support of credit unions.
Very active in the community, Tim serves on numerous other boards. He is a strong advocate for educational causes as well. He serves on the boards for the Tulsa Community College Foundation, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa Area United Way and Tulsa Regional Chamber. He and his wife, Carol, are longtime members of Christian Chapel serving in various leadership and ministry capacities.
Tim and Carol have two daughters and five grandchildren. In his spare time, he enjoys bicycling, spending time on his boat and teaching his grandkids how to fish.
Stephanie R. Jackson
Stephanie R. Jackson joined Temple Foundation Board of Trustees in 2019. Stephanie is the founding member of the Law Office of Stephanie R. Jackson, PLLC and serves as its only attorney. Stephanie attended Frederick Douglass High School in Oklahoma City and continued her academic career at Oklahoma State University, and the University of Central Oklahoma earning her Bachelor of Science degree. In 2000, Stephanie went on to earn a Master of Science in Management from the Southern Nazarene University.
Stephanie obtained her Juris Doctor at the University of Tulsa College of Law where she was Vice President of the Black Law Students Association. She is an active member of Christian Chapel where she assists with Jobs For Life mentoring program helping individuals build their resume and interviewing skills to obtain better career opportunities.
Before her retirement in January 2017, Stephanie served the citizens of Tulsa as a Tulsa Police Department Sergeant. During her time at Tulsa Police, Stephanie received many commendations, awards, and honors including being awarded Officer of the Month for December 2007 by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. One of only twelve awards given to officers each year around the country, and presented during National Police Week in Washington, DC by the Secretary of State. In 2013, she was also named one of the Tulsa Shock’s Williams Women of Inspiration Honorees.
Stephanie is an active member of the Board of Trustees at Holland Hall College Preparatory School, T.U. Law Alumni Board of Directors, and T.U. Alumni Board of Directors. She is a former Board of Director member for the Domestic Violence Intervention Services and the Sickle Cell Disease Association.
Stephanie is a member of the American Bar Association, the Oklahoma Bar Association, and the Tulsa County Bar Association. Stephanie is admitted to practice in Oklahoma and in United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
In her free time, Stephanie enjoys reading, running, and traveling with her family. Stephanie resides in the Tulsa area with her husband, and daughter.
David Beiler
David Beiler joined the Temple Foundation Board of Trustees in 2014. David has served as a CPA, first working as an auditor for a public accounting firm, and later serving as an audit officer for a national bank. Eventually, David followed his passion for positively impacting students and became an educator at Jenks Public Schools, a Malcolm Baldrige award winner.
In 2016, David was selected as one of three finalists for National Assistant Principal of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. David is now a site principal at Jenks Public Schools. During his tenure at Jenks Public Schools, David has focused specifically on character development, leadership, and recognizing and realizing a student’s full potential as each student prepares to be college and career ready.
David’s passion is serving others, and as such, he is highly involved at his church, where his wife serves as the children’s pastor. He also represents the greater Tulsa area as a regional representative for the Oklahoma Association of Secondary School Principals.
Charles Wayne Bland
Dr. C. Wayne Bland believed in service to others, a philosophy that served him throughout his career as a teacher, principal, credit union president and philanthropist. Wayne was born in Waldon, Ark., but his family moved to Oklahoma when he was only six months old. He learned his work ethic on the family farm in Indiahoma, where he worked until he was 18. Then he put himself through college and got a job as a teacher for Tulsa Public Schools. He met his wife, Jo Ann Hammond, while working as a biology teacher at Wilson Junior High School. They quickly fell in love and married, starting a 61-year long partnership.
Wayne served in leadership roles with Tulsa Public Schools, first as a principal at Bell Junior High School and later as the administrative director of secondary education. Under his leadership, TPS navigated the potentially divisive desegregation busing with a plan that met federal guidelines. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame in 2000 in honor of his contributions to TPS over the years.
Wayne’s career in education introduced him to both fellow educator David Temple and the credit union that was then known as Tulsa Teachers Credit Union. At Temple’s encouragement, Wayne used the credit union’s services himself over the years. Later, in 1971, he was recruited to serve on the credit union board and served as the board chair for several years.
Both Temple and Bland were vocal advocates for the credit union’s services, with Bland writing in 1991, “Perhaps the major ingredient in the ultimate success of the credit union rests on the degree to which the member-owners support it and use its services.”
In 1986, Wayne was named the fourth president of TTCU, retiring from his career in education to run the credit union full-time at David Temple’s encouragement. At that time, he committed to serve ten years as president, and fulfilled that promise to the day, stepping down in 1996.
Wayne’s crowning achievement was the incredible growth that TTCU experienced under his leadership, both in asset size and branch locations. During the decade that he served, TTCU doubled its asset size to $320 million while growing the membership to over 50,000.
He also oversaw the growth of TTCU’s physical footprint with the building of the very first branch in Tahlequah in 1992. Both he and the board at the time recognized the importance of investing in new branches so the credit union could help additional members reach their financial goals. A second location in Tulsa also opened in 1993, and property was purchased for a third Tulsa location that would be built after he stepped down.
It’s a testament to the strength of the relationship that David Temple and Wayne built through their years working in education and serving on the TTCU board together that he was a co-founder of the David E. and Cassie L. Temple Foundation. The Temples entrusted him, along with the other trustees, with their legacy. Under his leadership from 1996 to 2014 the foundation gave away over $14 million to local Tulsa area charities.
Dr. Bland passed away in 2019 after a lifetime of service to others.
Betty L. Stephenson
Betty L. Stephenson was a lifelong advocate of the credit union motto, ‘Not for profit, not for charity, but for service.’ That, plus her years-long friendship with David and Cassie Temple, made her a natural choice for trustee of the David and Cassie Temple Foundation.
Betty’s path to the Foundation began when she applied for a job at TTCU Federal Credit Union – known then as Tulsa Teachers Credit Union – in 1952, when she was just seventeen years old. As only the second full-time employee in the history of the credit union, Betty worked closely with the founder, Linnie B. Wilson, and was trusted with crucial duties.
“The members were our friends,” Betty remembers of that period.
This job would change the course of her life. Betty had originally intended to become a teacher, but inspired by her credit union experience, she majored in business instead. Betty left for a few years to attend college in another state, but quickly returned to Tulsa and the credit union, taking night classes to finish her bachelor’s degree at the University of Tulsa.
She returned to TTCU, the credit union that had stolen her heart, as the office manager, where she met and was mentored by David Temple, then a high school principal and member of TTCU’s board. TTCU grew rapidly, adding new members and out-growing buildings. When TTCU was looking to build a new headquarters in the 1960’s, Betty, along with David and Cassie Temple, were entrusted with the task of researching credit union best practices, touring other credit unions and interviewing their staff. They helped shape the future of TTCU for decades to come.
In 1974, Betty resigned her position with TTCU when her husband, Loren, was called to pastor a church in South Carolina, and the couple eventually moved to Indiana as well. But, upon her husband’s retirement in 1991, they returned to Tulsa and Betty went right back to work at the credit union for another eight years.
Thanks to her twenty-seven years of service with TTCU and her lifelong friendship with the Temples, Betty was chosen as one of the founding members of the Temple Foundation. She served faithfully as a trustee and secretary from inception in 1995 until her death in 2019. Betty Stephenson was the heart and soul of the David and Cassie Temple Foundation. Down through the years the trustees have often asked themselves, “what would Dave and Cassie do about this grant request?” The current trustees now include Betty in that question asking, “what would Betty think?” We miss you Betty!