By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — When Pam Case walked into the Jack Daniel Employees Credit Union in 1999, she was handed the keys to an $8 million institution with no training manual, a staff of one, and a quiet prediction from someone who should have known better: this place will probably need to merge.

Twenty-five years later, the credit union has grown to more than $55 million in assets. Pam Case is still at the helm. And she’ll tell you that story herself — with a laugh, a shrug, and the particular quiet confidence of someone who learned long ago that the best response to a doubter is a finished job.

“Tell me I can’t,” she said, “and I’ll probably say hold my sweet tea and sit back and watch.”

{Editor’s Note: We work hard to keep you informed. Make sure you never miss a story. Get every new headline delivered straight to your inbox with Lynchburg Times News Alert. Sign up here.}  

Roots in the Southern Part of the County

Pam was born in the Charity community, the daughter of Wayne and Linda Harper, who had purchased their farm just a month before she arrived. The Harpers and the Fannings — her family on both sides — have long roots in the southern part of Moore County, stretching back to the Liberty Hill Church of Christ and the Brandons’ homestead in Marble Hill.

She graduated from Moore County High School in 1986 — class president, Miss MCHS, basketball player, baseball scorekeeper — before spending four years in Nashville at Lipscomb University and four more years working downtown. She earned a degree in Accounting and a minor in Marketing, a combination she was told at the time was the first of its kind at Lipscomb. It seemed odd then. It turned out to be exactly right.

“I didn’t know how important that combination would become over time,” she said.

She and her husband, DJ, moved back to Moore County in December 1994 and built a home on her parents’ farm, where they’ve raised three children and are now grandparents to Lyla, Lucy, and Case.

A Patchwork Career That Turned Out to Be a Blueprint

Before she ever set foot in the credit union, Pam had assembled an unlikely résumé. She was editor of the Lipscomb yearbook.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, but I led by just doing the best with what I had,” she says.

The edition she oversaw, titled “What is the secret of our success,” earned the university its first awards. She worked as controller of a Nashville construction company while her husband was deployed overseas, learning to read blueprints and manage contracts entirely alone. Then she joined the State of Tennessee Comptroller’s Office of Municipal Audit, where she specialized in fraud, waste, and abuse investigations across cities, schools, utility districts, and nonprofits.

“Learning to piece together a financial puzzle” is how she describes that work. “Those skills I carry with me to this day.”

When she and DJ returned to Lynchburg, she started at Jack Daniel Distillery in the accounting department at age 26 — paying bills, she says, and “anything else I could get into.” Four years later, a colleague named Mike Womack walked up and told her to look into a job at the credit union. His reasoning was simple: “You will treat people well.”

She still holds onto that charge.

From $8 Million to $55 Million

The Jack Daniel Employees Credit Union was officially founded in October 1977 out of the desk of Billy Thomas, who was tasked by his boss with figuring out what a credit union was and getting one started. The institution operates on a straightforward premise: members save, those savings fund loans to other members, and the interest comes back as dividends. The reserve exists for when people fall on hard times and also allows the credit union to expand services. 

When Pam arrived in 1999, the credit union sat squarely along the Jack Daniel’s Distillery tour path. She worked with the board and colleagues she’d met through management school to find a new location. By 2006, they had a plan. In January 2008, they moved into the current building. The credit union has since expanded its membership to include Moore County government employees, and three years ago added LES students — a deliberate effort, Pam says, to build a generation of savers in the community.

“My goal has always been to not overgrow what we can serve,” she said.

That restraint is intentional. She pursued competitive auto loan rates by sitting down honestly with members and comparing numbers side by side. She has spent years researching bill pay — a product members want, but one she won’t offer until the cost of managing it makes sense for a small staff.

“It’s not about coming up with an idea,” she said. “It’s about researching the overall impact and also looking into the minute details.”

Bridging the Dips

If you ask Pam Case what drives every decision she makes at the credit union, she doesn’t talk about assets or loan volume. She talks about the front door.

“My driving goal is that everyone who walks in that front door is treated with equal respect,” she said. “Whether they owe us $1 million or have $1 million on deposit, to everyone in the lobby they should feel the same respect.”

In practice, that means helping people navigate what she calls “dips” — the moments when life outpaces income, when a large windfall arrives with no roadmap, or when a family member’s financial independence is the last thing holding their dignity together as their cognitive health declines.

“It’s not always about the money,” she said. “In a small town, being remembered for helping someone bridge the dips without recognition is much more important to me than any public accolade.”

A Life Woven Into the Community

Pam’s footprint in Moore County extends well beyond the credit union’s lobby. She is the founder of Sharing Christ with Others Youth Camp — and now, she says with characteristic self-effacement, she’s “the kitchen lady” of that same camp. The fact that others have taken ownership and kept it going is, to her, the proof that it worked.

She was a member of the first class of Lynchburg Leadership and remains on its board. They relaunched this month after being dormant for several years. She served as treasurer for the Chamber of Commerce. She is a member of the Lynchburg Ladies Auxiliary, where she has worked extensively with the Girls State program — an organization she attended herself as a student in 1985.

Her professional credentials extend to the state and national level as well. She serves on the Supervisory Committee for Volunteer Corporate Credit Union — an appointed position covering credit unions across Tennessee and Kentucky — and was selected as the committee’s representative to Vol Corp’s executive team. She also serves on the small credit union advisory board for NASCUS, the National Association of State Credit Union Supervisors.

At the local level, she’s been running a life-size version of the board game “Game of Life” with nearly every graduating senior class at Moore County High School for about 20 years. The credit union also operates Raiders Credit Union, a student branch at LES that she hopes to grow to the middle and high school levels.

“What you are doing today may not seem like it’s having an impact on your life,” she tells young people, “but one day it might. You won’t know until you need to reach back and grab that skill for something in life you’ve never heard of yet.”

She knows this from experience. She had never heard of a credit union until she started at Jack Daniel. Four years later, she was running one.

What She’d Tell Her Younger Self

Ask Pam Case what she’d say to her younger self and she doesn’t hesitate.

“If you will believe in yourself as much as God believes in your talents, you will have an amazing life ahead. Just slow down enough to enjoy it. Follow His lead.”

Then, with a laugh: “Buy dirt.” •

About the Lynchburg Times: The Lynchburg Times is Moore County’s locally owned, independent news source. Our reporting is supported by readers, small business partners, and underwriters like our friends the Lynchburg Chamber of Commerce, who sponsored our Women’s History Month articles. If this story was valuable to you, consider becoming a supporter at lynchburgtimes.com.