Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Spreading the Word

Monday morning I had an interview with Marcia Taylor, an executive editor at DTN/Progressive Farmer.

She’s doing an article based on the new ag census. If you haven’t seen it, and you’re interested, you can check it out here.

Marcia specifically wanted to talk about new farmers—both young people just starting out and old(er) people who have come to farming as a second career (you may recall we did an entire Leader magazine based on folks who have double-cropped their careers, so I was well-prepared to talk about this as well).
There are more new farmers in this census—4% more farmers than in the census filled out in 2002. Farm numbers have been declining since the 1940’s, so it was nice to talk about the positive trend.

It was also nice to tell Marcia about our StartRight program, and how it’s specifically geared to young, beginning, small and minority (that includes women—according to the farm census data, there are 30% more women farming now than in 2002). Thank you to all of you for talking about our program, using our program, and supporting our program. It’s nice to know that we’re making a difference, and helping people get started.

Special note: we recently posted an overview of how well the System is serving ybsm farmers to our Facebook page. If you didn’t see it there, you can check it out here.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

A Member of the Family

This week, I’m not going to talk about our industry or our business. I’m going to talk about our family.

We always say that we’re a big family here; I hear that from staff members all the time. When one of us is hurting, we’re all hurting; when one of us succeeds, I feel like it’s a success for everyone.

Yesterday we lost a dear family member—Debbie Wilson. And I’m as upset about the loss as I would be if we had grown up together.

Debbie was one of my heroes. That’s pretty high praise, but I mean it. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell her when I could. I’ve known Debbie for nine years…ever since our merger in 2000. Back then, Debbie worked for the Marva association, and she was the board secretary and assistant to the CEO. Obviously, that role changed after our merger, and Debbie took on her new role with her trademark cheerfulness.

I’m not sure if the move bothered her, or if she had any difficulties with the transition. If she did, she didn’t show it.

In the past few years, Debbie’s role has changed again and again. When we needed help, she pitched in and did it with a smile. Need to scan in a couple thousand loan docs? There was Debbie at the scanner, joking about the job, making everyone smile who walked past.

In the last few years, Debbie pitched in to help the appraisal department in Delmarva. As usual, Debbie handled this change, too, with grace and a positive attitude. In fact, Debbie always seemed happy to me…and when I heard her trademark giggle, I was happy as well.

We lost her giggle this week. We lost her great sense of fun. And most importantly, we lost a member of our team, and a dear member of our family.

I wish that I could handle this change as well as she could have.

Bob

PS—If you didn’t know Debbie personally, she is leaving behind a husband and a son in his early twenties. And, of course, a whole family of grieving co-workers.