Jose Villa serves as Vice President of Commercial Lending at Fox Communities Credit Union, where his role extends far beyond approving loans. For Villa, it’s about fostering relationships, educating community members, and building pathways to financial stability for individuals and businesses alike. “It’s more than just sitting down and doing loans,” he says. “It’s about getting out in the community and understanding what the needs are and seeing what we can do as a financial institution to help our community develop.”
Villa’s commitment to the community is reflected in his extensive involvement with nonprofit organizations and his passion for helping underserved groups achieve their financial goals. He is board president for CASA ALBA Melanie, a Hispanic resource center in Green Bay, treasurer of Green Bay Botanical Garden’s board and a member of the St. Norbert College Alumni board. He frequently collaborates with nonprofits and community leaders.
Roots of Resilience
Villa’s mother migrated to Fresno in the 1980s. When he was 13, in 2003, they relocated to Door County, Wisconsin, seeking better opportunities.
“I wouldn’t say that Fresno would be the great place to have children or grow up,” he says. “A little bit rough there.”
As the son of a single mother, Villa learned the value of hard work early on.
“I had to be my mom’s rock,” he says. “I had to grow up quick.”
Working multiple jobs while attending school, he found himself juggling dishwashing shifts, farm work, and classes. Despite these challenges, Villa thrived academically, earning an associate’s degree from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC), a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and later, an MBA from St. Norbert College.
Finance wasn’t always at the top of his list of career options.
“At that point in survival mode, you’re like, ‘What can I do the quickest that would give me the most money to get my family?’ Business was the biggest thing,” he says. “I come from a culture where entrepreneurship is big. That’s where I started with the whole finance piece of it, and then kind of just grew from there.”
Empowering Entrepreneurs
Villa’s role at Fox Communities Credit Union has allowed him to channel his lived experiences into meaningful impact. As a commercial lender, he works with entrepreneurs at all stages of their business journeys.
“Giving guidance is a lot of my job,” he says. “(A new business) is not something that develops within a couple months … when I’m working with entrepreneurs who are saying, ‘I have a dream and I want to do this,’ but they don’t have the background or education in regards to the steps to fulfill that dream, to fulfill that goal. Understanding the mechanics of it, and that’s the piece where the education comes in. Not everybody has that patience.”
Villa’s passion for helping others extends to unconventional methods of supporting small businesses. He emphasizes the importance of creating equitable opportunities, particularly for communities of color.
Driving Community Development
In his role, Villa is deeply invested in initiatives that address systemic challenges. He points to a recent collaboration with a nonprofit tackling homelessness operating out of what he calls a “dilapidated church” that ran out of space. FCCU was able to finance construction of a new space while the organization did the fundraising to pay it off.
“We created collaboration within the community, and then now created a way bigger facility for them,” he recalls. “We did a bridge loan for them to build it. And as donations come in and obviously do pledges and things like that, you can’t start the building without having the funds. Structuring something that is very complex. You’re working with many people at the same time. I can go ahead and do a $2,000,000, 18-unit apartment complex. That’s pretty straightforward. There isn’t really anything to get creative with. So it’s just more of the complex structure. And how do we get creative in regards to helping with some of these projects within our community?”
Looking Ahead
As the demographics of Northeast Wisconsin continue to evolve, Villa sees both opportunities and challenges, especially as relates to entrepreneurship.
“You see the presence of the Latino community, and it’s starting to grow in a lot of little places,” he says. “And this is being done unconventionally. This isn’t done through loans. … When you have two or three generations within one household, making income, saving money, creating equity,” entrepreneurship can thrive, he says.
He believes the future depends on strategic planning and equitable resource allocation. “We need to focus a lot of our resources on communities that really need it. We’re only as strong as our weakest link,” he says.
Villa envisions a community where leaders work collaboratively to create sustainable growth, noting that many nonprofits who once competed for funding are now visibly working together.
“I don’t want to take away from the founders of a lot of these organizations and a lot of the things that they’ve done to get us here,” he says. “Now, (collaboration) is more visible. Now we can see it, and we can see the fruit of it.”
A Mission Rooted in Lived Experience
Villa says his passion for helping comes from lived experience.
“I grew up with domestic violence, left California … we were getting put into the foster care system,” he says. “My mom, being a single mom, just not having support from the community or from our families. Coming here, we had to kind of do everything on our own.”
Despite his accomplishments, Villa tries to remain humble and grounded.
“You see (in me) a very well spoken person, you know, full accolades, but you don’t see the story behind that, or the journey behind that,” he says. “You don’t see that it took all that work, and me saying yes to a lot of the things that I should be saying no to … I had to put in triple the work to be able to be where I’m at today. … that’s where my passion comes from. If I can do something to help somebody know their potential, and believe in themselves, then I’m gonna do whatever I can. That’s my mission.”
