I just want to begin by saying Thank You. I am lucky enough to have the best job in the world. I get to lead the best performing Farm Credit association in the country. I am blessed with the greatest customers any business could have and I get to lead a team of dedicated and knowledgeable staff that put our customers first every day.
I won’t have enough space in my comments to fully explain how well things are going with your cooperative, but know your cooperative is performing very well. I am proud to be part of GreenStone. Thank You for being a member/owner.
President and CEO Travis Jones
In my comments last quarter, the lack of rain was a major topic. Well, the Lord heard our combined prayers and came through with above normal rainfalls in July and August for most of our region. Crops currently look good. Even wheat came in better than expected. That is based on every conversation I have had with a member, no matter where their farm is in Michigan or northeast Wisconsin. Actually, we have had a little too much rain for some crops. Michigan Sugar Company is reporting the excess rain is currently producing a high tonnage sugarbeet crop but with low sugar content. Beet growers are hoping for a dry, sunny fall to slow tonnage growth and improve sugar concentration. However, the USDA is projecting Michigan’s average corn yield to be up a couple of bushels per acre compared to last year and the average soybean yield to be down only one bushel per acre. Not too bad considering where we started!
Good yields will be important this year as prices have certainly fallen for a number of commodities, including corn. The USDA is predicting a 25% decrease in net farm income in 2023 compared to 2022’s record year, adjusted for inflation. While it is never fun for any individual or business to have their income reduced by 25% from one year to the next, the USDA does report that, adjusted for inflation, projected net farm income in 2023 would still be nearly 23% above the 20-year average.
A couple of things I most like to do is conduct customer visits and branch visits. From April through mid-September, I have been able to meet with at least 15 customers on their farms and I have visited all 35 of our branches. I can’t think of a better way to hear from our customers and our employees on how things are going, both good and bad. From a customer standpoint, things seem to be going pretty well and they seem very happy with our cooperative. As a matter of fact, in July we received our customer satisfaction survey results. We are very pleased to report our numbers improved from last year’s already strong numbers. 96% of our customers are “satisfied” and “very satisfied.” That is up from 95% last year. In addition, 74% of our customers were “very satisfied.” That result was an all-time high for GreenStone. Thank you to those of you who took our annual randomized survey and thank you for the ratings!
These results don’t happen by accident, however. Our staff consistently follow our CoreFour Values:
• Customer First • Deliver Quality
• Get Involved • Do the Right Thing
We wouldn’t have very satisfied customers if our employees didn’t follow these values. While it seems to just come naturally to our staff, I don’t take it for granted. I want to thank all of my teammates for these outstanding results!
On August 21, 22 and 23, the GreenStone Executive Team and our Board of Directors had our board meeting and our annual planning meeting at Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana. We held our meeting there as a more central location as we actually had a joint meeting with Farm Credit Illinois during the first two days of our meetings. Farm Credit Illinois has $5.9 billion in assets and serves the southern half of Illinois. It is the twelfth largest Farm Credit association in the country. (GreenStone has over $13.5 billion in assets and is the sixth largest Farm Credit association.) Our executive team and board thought this would be a great opportunity to get to know our counterparts from another association and use the opportunity to share our successes and challenges. We each discussed how we serve our customers, our technology strategies and other topics. (I also had to take a few minutes to brag about the performance of your cooperative.) Both groups also got to hear a presentation from Brett Sciotto, CEO of Aimpoint Research, on the Future State of Lending. I thought we had a great meeting and really enjoyed our time with Aaron Johnson, CEO of Farm Credit Illinois, and with his executive team and board of directors.
After 25 years of service to GreenStone and 35 years as an HR professional, Beth Barker, Executive Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer has announced her retirement. Beth will retire on April 19, 2024.
Beth joined Farm Credit Services of Michigan’s Heartland on April 20,1998 as VP & Human Resources Director. In June of 1999, the four Farm Credit associations in Michigan began joint management and Beth was appointed head of Human Resources for the new entity. She was tasked with leading all human resources/people-related activities for that merger as well as the merger of GreenStone and Farm Credit Services of Northeast Wisconsin.
Beth created our human resources and learning & development functions that we know today. She has worked passionately to create a culture and work environment that values and recognizes employees as key stakeholders in the growth and success of GreenStone.
I continue to tell our employees, directors, customers and anyone I am in front of that GreenStone is the best Farm Credit association in the country when it comes to financial success, customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Beth has been a huge part of our success and will be missed after her retirement date.
Since becoming CEO a little over a year ago, I have been very lucky to have developed very strong relationships with some other CEOs in the Farm Credit System. A handful of the CEOs and their associations are partners in our technology and Capital Markets collaborations that GreenStone leads. Our partners are always very appreciative of the services we provide, and they help GreenStone defray some of our technology and staffing costs. This summer one of our partners, Farm Credit Services of Mandan, asked me, board director Mike Timmer, and Brad Wright, Senior VP of Capital Markets and AgriBusiness Lending, to attend their executive and director planning meeting. After our presentation, their board chairperson pulled me aside and said she “didn’t understand why an association would want to partner with anyone beside GreenStone.” That comment obviously made me very proud. GreenStone recently received more praise from Greg Cole, CEO of AgHeritage Farm Credit Services. After a recent visit he sent me a note that included the following, “You guys have built one of the most high performing associations in the Farm Credit system.”
As I said in the beginning of my comments, I have the best job in the world to be able to lead this organization. I can’t be more proud of the positive comments I receive about GreenStone.
Please feel free to reach out to me any time if I can ever be of assistance. Thank you again for your membership and business!
To view the article in the online 2023 Fall Partners Magazine, click here.
