Family First Credit Union in Saginaw announced on Friday, Sept. 28, that Jane Smith, the chief financial officer, was no longer employed by the company after she posted a photo of her and her family in "Lake America" sweatshirts.
"We weren't trying to make a political statement," Smith told WJRT, the ABC affiliate in Flint-Saginaw that first reported the news. "However, we were, you know, kind of poking fun at the fact that you know one of the Great Lakes' names were getting changed."
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in August renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America amid a trade battle with Canada. The lake's name comes from Native American language and has been used since the 17th century.
Smith says she and her family, who
were leaving for a 10-day trip to Nova Scotia took a photo together and put it through Chat GPT, an AI chatbot created by OpenAI.
"I am not a person that would ever want to offend or hurt anybody," she said. "I do regret having any post that would make someone feel like we don't value them as human beings," Smith said in an interview with WJRT.
Family First Credit Union said Jason Acosta will serve as interim CEO.
"We understand that members of our community may hold different perspectives about this decision. Our responsibility is to act in the best interest of the Credit Union, uphold the trust of our members and continue putting our community first," the credit union said in a statement posted to Facebook.
Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jawilliams1@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Saginaw credit union executive fired over Lake America photo. Here's why
