In talking about her career, Connie Boretti comes off very much as a banking nerd – she was, after all, a kid who played at being a bank teller as far back as elementary school.

But her banking career led her to credit unions and, shortly thereafter, to data processing at State Street Bank and Trust Co., at a time when back-office finance technology was wildly different than the lightning-fast transactions of today. Now, she heads up Waltham-based Credit Union On-Line, a credit union service organization that started out as a bank subsidiary in 1980. She and her colleagues bought it out in 1994, and she remains one of the few female CEOs in data processing.

An avid traveler who’s been to dozens of countries – some multiple times – Boretti says her career, and life, has been a series of calculated risks and adventures.

Title: President and CEO, Credit Union On-Line; Waltham

Age: 61

Experience: 40 years

So you started out at Shawmut?

I was a clerk, working in the super check and check loan department in Kenmore Square… Then I moved on to Raytheon credit union [RTN Federal Credit Union], which got me exposed to credit unions because I knew nothing about them. And I think the atmosphere between banks and credit unions is very, very different. A bank is the type of organization where they don’t want to appear as if they need help, whereas credit unions welcome help. So it was a totally different mindset.

Then you were hired at State Street, specifically to work in data processing?

Well, the credit union was looking for a data processing system, and had decided to go with State Street Bank and Trust. So I got to be part of the conversion, and the salesperson on the account, as well as the account managers on the account [at State Street], went to my boss and asked if they could give me a job offer.

I worked from Maine to Puerto Rico, doing conversions. I met my husband and we married, and at that point in time, State Street had a nepotism rule so one of us had to go, and I wanted to have a family … then I went to work for one of my customers [Metropolitan Credit Union in Chelsea] who was having some problems in their data processing, and were a client of ours.

State Street didn’t allow husbands and wives to work together?

Yeah, we were in the same division, and I guess it would have been another thing if we had been in different divisions …This was before State Street really went to mutual funds, they had a lot of retails, a lot of commercial processing, they were a huge data processing company way back when, and they competed with the biggest ones that were in the marketplace.

I wasn’t at Metro that long, going on three years… at that point in time, Metro had a group of five other credit unions, and we formed a group looking for a data processing system. …We found the system that we wanted, but we didn’t have the capital or the expertise really to pull it off ourselves – we were credit union people. So we partnered with a gentleman at NCR [a Georgia-based financial technology company], and this gentleman got us involved with Cambridge Trust Co. [which became parent company to Credit Union On-Line’s predecessor]

Why approach Cambridge Trust Co.?

Well, they had a need. They were on their own system, they wanted an upgrade, and they were just looking to defer the expense of the upgrade. And maybe if they generated a little income on the side, that would be great, so not only did they do all of that, they netted, on average, a half million dollars a year, so it was very lucrative for them.

And how did you eventually branch off from them?

We reached a turning point in 1994 where we needed a new system. And we investigated over 100 systems, narrowed it down to two, made a decision, [and] went to the bank [to get further capital for the conversion]. We wanted them to invest, they decided it wasn’t the time to invest, it was the time to divest. We were at a crossroads …so I went ahead with the credit unions that we were processing for, and asked them if they would join with me. And licensing this new system, we formed what we call a CUSO, a credit union service organization. That basically means our customers become stockholders and they have a vested interest…the board of Cambridge Trust Co. – luckily for Connie and Co. – basically gave us a wonderful deal and we formed Credit Union On-Line Inc. … we never looked back.

Boretti’s Top Five Favorite Travel Destinations:

• Egypt: A place that “engages all five sense at the same time.”
• Israel: “Both Israeli and Palestinian cultures are fascinating and quite different.”
• The Baltics: “Worthwhile, especially to see the 24 hours of sunlight in the summer.”
• Russia: Boretti’s relatives hail from there, giving it personal significance.
• Spain: Although she’s been to Italy 13 times (it was her husband’s favorite), Boretti said she favors Spain, which she’s visited six or seven times.