CEO Letter for September 2024

Dear Customer Owners,

As we step into September, I want to take this opportunity to recognize a recent retirement from Farm Credit of Southern Colorado.  We have been blessed to work with Darvin Meurisse for nearly all his 39 years of extraordinary service to the Farm Credit System.  Darvin began his career with Farm Credit in Phillipsburg Kansas and then made the move to Burlington CO a few years later.  He would go on to lead that office as a loan officer, branch manager and for a period of time, managed all our loan officer team.  Darvin is a key reason Burlington is our largest market and as I said during his retirement party August 28^th, Darvin is to me, the epitome of a trusted advisor.  He is the individual you wanted with you when you went to an auction or when you contemplated a large capital expenditure.  We will miss Darvin and his years of experience.  We at Farm Credit of Southern Colorado wish Darvin the best in his next endeavors!

In all my professional years, I have not seen the kind of employee tenure we see here within Farm Credit.  The number of employees that have worked in the Farm Credit system for 20-30-40+ years is truly amazing to me, and I believe is a testament to the mission of Farm Credit and the culture we have built over the years here at Farm Credit of Southern Colorado!

Fall Sales Closing Date

This is your friendly reminder that this year’s Fall Crop Insurance Sales Closing Date is September 30^th. If you have yet to file for multi-peril crop insurance, please contact our ag insurance team, Bobby and Trista, to start your coverage today!

Calendar Contest Finalists

We are delighted to announce this year’s Calendar Contest Finalists! Our team had a hard time nailing down this year’s final photos but now it’s your turn to vote on which one you believe should be this year’s winner! Click the button below to view our finalists and cast your vote before Friday, September 20, 2024, at 11:59pm.

Welcome New Hires

Please help us welcome our new loan officer, Stetson Corman!

From Stetson: “Eastern Colorado has always been home for me. Growing up, I was blessed to have the opportunity to learn hard work between the family feed yards and cow/calf operation. Much of my youth was spent playing football, basketball, baseball, and rodeo. After graduating from Burlington High School in 2012, I attended Texas Tech University on a rodeo scholarship, where I majored in Agricultural Economics. After graduation, I spent the summer of 2016 rodeoing and working on the ranch before returning to Texas Tech to take over the head Rodeo Coach position. In 2018, Zoetis brought me back to Burlington as a Territory Business Manager. For six years, I provided products and learned from some of the best producers and veterinarians in Northwest Kansas and Southwest Nebraska.

“My wife, Brittney, and I are blessed with two kiddos, Brye (3) and Kater (1). Brye is super excited to start her first year of Preschool, and Kater is all about cattle and horses. Brittney loves serving the community as a Registered Nurse in the Surgery Unit at Kit Carson County Memorial Hospital.

“I am very excited to join the team here in Burlington and looking forward to serving and learning from some of the greatest Ag producers you will find.”

County Fairs in September

There are still a few county fairs happening in September, so be sure to check out the remaining ones below:

Phase One of Project Evolution Is Here!

I am excited to announce our Project Evolution launch training is finally upon us. The Farm Credit of Southern Colorado team will be attending a 3-day training the week of September 24th to learn the new platform, test out the new applications, and officially launch nCino into our organization. We are thrilled to finally be at the go-live moment for one portion of this project.  The training will include the loan origination software nCino that I have talked with you all about before.  While many of our team will be involved in the training, we still are open for business and will have folks available in each office to meet your needs.

An important aspect of Project Evolution that I have not touched on enough is the addition of new talented team members to our organization.  As I have detailed previously, this investment in technology really involves us taking over the “owner experience” and delivering credit to our customer owners in a way we feel better serves our unique Colorado customer base.  In making this switch, we are pulling back to Farm Credit of Southern Colorado many functions that our third-party technology partner AgVantis have done for us for years.  In order to fulfill those responsibilities, we had planned to add up to 10 new staff members to our team in 2024.  I am pleased to share that most of those team members have now been hired and are doing great work in filling those roles.  I share this because I know for me and for our board, this is a significant step in our commitment to Colorado and our rural communities we serve.  These are jobs that are coming back HERE in OUR back yard rather than being a part of a service fee we paid to a third party out of state.  Financially, this is a trade of one expense in a service fee, for an addition to our payroll.  From a culture and community perspective, this is a shift to having more resources here locally and to adding talented individuals to our team!  I look forward to introducing you to more of those folks in the coming months and have found it very gratifying to see the large number of applicants we receive for any open positions here today. 

I will continue to provide you with updates on the project each month and we should be utilizing the new loan origination platform by my next update.

Sincerely,

Farm Credit of Southern Colorado CEO

Jeremy Anderson