Frank Cavale established Cavale Collection Service, Inc. out of his home at 1600 West Mineral King in Visalia. Frank had a vision to service the entire state of California. For the first 10 years the agency employed seven employees. Every new account was tracked on a 3 x 5 index card initially by typewriter and then manually updated each time any activity occurred on the account. The office phone number was Redwood 22-2286.
Cavale Collection Service was growing and had to find a new location to accommodate 16 employees. The new location was 1969 S Mooney Boulevard in Visalia.
Cavale Collection Service is growing and on the move again! The new location is 2015 West Tulare Avenue with plenty of room for expansion. Cavale Collection now employs 23.
Cavale Collection Service enters the computer age. Our first computers were dumb terminals and data was transmitted back and forth to a service bureau. We were still working off of those 3 x 5 index cards but now they are produced by a printer rather than someone having to hand type each one. The updating is still done manually.
Anne VanZandt and her friends and family hold the first Kids for Christmas event inviting 50 underserved kids to a huge Christmas party complete with a visit from Santa Claus. Franks role is to provide the pizza for the kids.
Cavale Collection Service purchases its first collection server! A huge selling point of the Columbia Ultimate Business Systems collection package is the paperless environment….no more index cards! Alicia Osborn is hired this year as a salesperson but eventually moves inside to manage the new computer system. Our first computer measured four feet tall, six feet long and about three feet wide. It took an entire corner of a room.
Alicia is promoted to Vice President this year. Frank decides to rename his company as his next step in realizing his goal of servicing the entire State of California. Cavale Collection Service becomes Financial Credit Network, Inc. and now employs 29 employees.
Frank purchases the Dudley House at 1300 West Main Street in Visalia with the vision of providing an unprecedented workplace for his employees. Frank hires John Peters of Peters Construction to begin the remodel. After 10,000 man hours the building is restored to its original splendor and Financial Credit Network makes its final move.
Frank starts a non profit group called Networking for
Kids. Networking for Kids is a mentor program pairing an underserved
child with an adult culminating with a trip to the YMCA Camp Tulequoia once a
year.
Frank decides to retire and sells Financial Credit Network to Paul Flannery. Paul has a strong background in technology and sales and here we grow again!
While commuting in his airplane, Frank meets an untimely demise. We will always hold a huge space in our hearts for Mr. C.
Financial Credit Network, with the help of their employees and vendors, begins supplying shoes and socks for the Kids for Christmas annual event.
Kids for Christmas continues to grow and is now servicing 6 different schools in the Visalia area who choose their most underserved families to participate. 200 children are served each year! Visalia has a snow day!
To prepare for Y2K, Paul asks our IT staff to spend the night
on site and has his management team have dinner with him just in case something
goes wrong.
Financial Credit Network expands to the Santa Barbara area and opens a satellite office on Canon Perdido employing a sales person and an assistant.
Paul sold the business to our current owner, Alicia Sundstrom. Under her leadership, the organization has flourished.
We celebrated our 50th anniversary with a huge party on the Main Street grounds, culminating with a benefit concert for Camp Tulequoia with the wonderful Tony Bennett at the Fox! Frank would have loved it...
FCN was awarded "Best Place to Work in Collections!"
Our Santa Barbara office relocates to State Street. The new office also has a small apartment which makes it more convenient when Visalia staff travel to the area.
Ann’s Kids for Christmas was
inducted into the Education Hall of Fame for its outstanding service to
schools, children and youth by the Visalia PTA Council and the Visalia Unified
School District.
FCN created "Project Hope" in an attempt to get our team hooked on the Community Service bug! Want to know more? Check out our "Giving Back" section to learn all of the details.
This same year, we created a program for our staff called "With A Little Help From My Friends". It is an opportunity for our team to help each other with unexpected expenses. This voluntary program allows team members to contribute as little as 50 cents per pay period into a fund that is then used to assist fellow employees in need throughout the year. Since it's inception, we helped with medical bills, funeral expenses, utility bills, emergency travel, car repairs, housing deposits and many other expenses. Our team has given over $6,000 into this fund.
Anne VanZandt's family decides that they can no longer continue the Kids for Christmas tradition and Financial Credit Network decides to take over the event.
FCN was once again awarded with the "Best Place to Work in Collections!"
Financial Credit Network celebrates it’s 60th year and created a list of 60 different things that we shared with the staff throughout the year like tshirts, lunch totes, 60 minutes more of PTO, 60 slices of pizza, 60 games during the summer, 60 question trivia game and much more!
FCN establishes it’s Fun Committee who have been tasked with coming up with one fun thing a month to do. Since then we have been visited by taco trucks, Baskin-Robbins, Bite Me Donuts; played Wheel of Fortune, BINGO, March Madness; we've seen baby pictures and high school graduation pictures; we received lip balm ("You are the Balm!"), chips ("You're All That & A Bag of Chips!"), highlighters ("You Are the Highlight of FCN!") as well as continued our tradition of decorating for Halloween and much more!
Prize Poppin' Penelope (the FCN chicken vending machine) is added to the Financial Credit Network team and the Appreciation Station Committee is formed. This program changes its theme quarterly and gives prizes to employees who encourage and thank other employees.
We merged with Accelerated Receivables Group (ARG) and added some amazing staff members and new clients. Our family grew once again!
Brought Coastal Recovery Solutions on board!
Endured a global pandemic!
Still going strong and loving every minute!
