Credit counseling service gets new president

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Consumer Credit Counseling Services, a not-for-profit organization that offers free counseling to people with debt problems, will officially be under new leadership Sept. 1, according to Jerry Jones, CCCS president and chief executive officer. |ret||ret||tab|

Jones has led the agency at 1675 E. Seminole since 1993 and increased its disbursement to creditors from about $200,000 a month to approximately $1 million a month. CCCS first reached $1 million in disbursement in March 1999 and has disbursed about $1 million every month since, he said. |ret||ret||tab|

Clients make one payment to the agency, which then disburses the payments to creditors. |ret||ret||tab|

Ninety percent of the creditors CCCS works with are credit card companies, Jones said. Credit counselors work with creditors to arrange a payment schedule for each client. |ret||ret||tab|

Most creditors will work with the agency to lower interest rates for their clients, and some will even eliminate interest altogether. CCCS employs five counselors at its two locations in Springfield. |ret||ret||tab|

Mike Cherry, who has served on CCCS' board of directors for 10 years, will take over for Jones as president and CEO. Cherry spent 18 years with Commerce Bank and comes to CCCS from Firstar.|ret||ret||tab|

"I've been with Firstar for the last four years. I've been in the finance and banking industry in Springfield for 30 years," Cherry said. "Over that period of time, I've established relationships with a number of attorneys I spent a lot of time working with bankruptcies. Nobody can see the need for what CCCS does more than I."|ret||ret||tab|

Cherry served as the chairman of the board for CCCS twice during his tenure and said he's been able to view debt from the consumer side and from the creditor side for the last 10 years. |ret||ret||tab|

"There's still a need to reach people before they get to bankruptcy court. I'm hoping to use my association with various attorneys and bankruptcy trustees to work out some way to get some referrals for CCCS from the bankruptcy court," Cherry said. "I see young couples filing bankruptcy who only owe about $4,000 they don't realize it at the time, but they're going to spend a fourth of what they owe in bankruptcy court." |ret||ret||tab|

Jones will stay on full-time until January to allow Cherry to get acclimated to his new position at CCCS. Then he will begin a newly created part-time position with CCCS as its community relations director. |ret||ret||tab|

"My responsibilities will consist of traveling to our eight offices in Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas and establishing relationships with local community leaders to promote our services," Jones said. |ret||ret||tab|

He said the new position is a way for him to scale back his work schedule and semi-retire. The public relations aspect of his former position was one of his favorite parts of the job, but something he rarely had time to devote much attention to, Jones said. He said he intends to fully retire in two years. |ret||ret||tab|

"I'm a good fit for this new position because I'm pretty well known in the area. Sometimes it's difficult to get your foot in the door and talk about our services," he said. |ret||ret||tab|

Jones will be based out of CCCS' 1425-F E. Kearney branch office, but said he'll spend most of time at CCCS offices in Lebanon, Branson, Joplin, West Plains, Pittsburgh, Kan. and Mountain Home, Ark. |ret||ret||tab|

The Branson, Lebanon and Pittsburgh, Kan., locations are satellite offices that operate out of Firstar locations and are staffed once a week by Springfield CCCS counselors. |ret||ret||tab|

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