New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association

The New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association (NHTOA) was formed as a result of cooperation between woodland owners and the state and federal governments and originally worked primarily in forest fire control. Today, NHTOA is a statewide trade association including landowners, foresters, loggers, truckers, mill owners, manufacturers, and others in the industry.

On May 20-22, 2011 NHTOA held their 100th annual meeting and centennial celebration. The event was held at the Mountain View Grand Resort in Whitefield, New Hampshire. There were field trips featuring old and modern forestry equipment and demonstrating silviculture objectives.



Yankee Farm Credit, ACA was proud to be a sponsor of this event. Christopher Bessette, Senior Loan Officer, from White River Junction and Ken Button, Senior Vice President, from Middlebury represented Yankee Farm Credit. They are pictured to the right on their way to various equipment demonstrations.

AgEnhancement Grants

The Farm Credit Northeast AgEnhancement Program recently awarded grants totaling $26,550 to 10 organizations. The grants help promote northeast agriculture. The recipients were:

Androscoggin Valley Soil and Water Conservation District - $500 to support development of a new program in Maine focused on reducing farm energy costs while improving farm productivity and profitability.

Concord Grape Belt Heritage Association - $5,000 to complete exhibits for the Grape Discovery Center, a major visitor attraction which will support the Eastern Lake Erie Grape Industry. The Center will tell the story of grape growing in the region for over 150 years.

Maine TREE Foundation - $5,000 to support the Teachers’ Tours of the Maine Forest program. This program provides teachers with a first-hand experience to share with students, colleagues and their community.

New Hampshire Farm to Restaurant Connection - $500 to support their efforts to establish a certification program to ensure that restaurants advertising they serve local products are, in fact, using significant amounts of local farm products.

New York FFA Foundation - $11,550 to support a four day leadership development program for FFA officers from seven states (New England states and New York). (This is approved as 7 state requests for $1,650 per state.)

New York Pork Producers Empire Swine Youth Program - $1,000 for a youth program and contest held at the New York State fair. This multi-faceted program involves contests on the knowledge of the swine industry, management capabilities and interviewing skills.

Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Connecticut - $500 to support a New Farmer Summit that will allow information sharing on local food production opportunities.

Orleans County, NY Cooperative Extension - $500 to support the Western New York educational event to promote the capine industry (Goat-A-Palooza). The event includes workshops for youth and adults.

Rutgers Cooperative Extension - $1,000 to support the New Jersey 4-H Equine Science programs which use a “Learn by Doing” approach to educate youth about all types of agriculture.

Walton Regional Livestock Show - $1,000 to support a regional livestock show to encourage and promote the breeding, raising and marketing of better livestock and farm products.

The Farm Credit Northeast AgEnhancement Program is a shared effort of Farm Credit East, Yankee Farm Credit, Farm Credit of Maine and CoBank. Grants are awarded in April, August and December each year. Since its inception in 1996 the program has awarded 457 grants totaling $1.2 million.

NH 4-H Golf Tournament

The 8th Annual Tom Fairchild Friend of NH 4-H Golf Tournament was held on May 20th at Candia Woods Golf Links in Candia, NH. Approximately 100 people participated, and the event raised about $21,000 for NH 4-H.

Yankee Farm Credit was a Bronze Sponsor. Below are Wendy Brock and Tom St. Pierre. Wendy is the Program Leader for 4-H Youth Development with UNH Cooperative Extension. Tom is a Yankee Farm Credit loan officer in our St. Albans office.

Lisa Gravel, Dena Verdin, Kyle Lussier and Tom St. Pierre represented Yankee this year:

Cameron Clark - Farm Credit Fellow

Cameron Clark of Williston, VT was in the Newport office this past week as part of the Farm Credit Fellows program. Cameron is the 8th generation on the family farm. She has completed two years at Vermont Tech and just finished her first year at UVM as part of the FARMS 2+2 program. Next spring she will graduate with her bachelor’s degree in Animal Science. For the last four years she has boarded heifers for a nearby dairy and continued to crop or rent out the crop land. After graduation she plans to start the dairy farm back up as an organic dairy and begin utilizing the sugarbush on the farm. Best wishes to Cameron from the Newport office and congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

Katie Bliss - Farm Credit Fellow

Katie Bliss- of Bliss, NY was in the Middlebury office the week of May 16-20 for her one week internship for the Farm Credit Fellow program. Katie is an agricultural science major with a concentration in business at Cornell University and will graduate in May 2012 with a BA of Science. Her family runs a dairy replacement operation. After graduating Katie wants to pursue a career in ag finance.

Ricky Hall - Farm Credit Fellow

Written by Ricky Hall...

I am going into my senior year at Cornell University, majoring in Dairy Management. I am from an 1100 cow Holstein farm in East Montpelier, Vermont. I look forward to the Farm Credit Fellows program to get a better understanding of agricultural finance overall, but more specifically how Farm Credit works and understanding the basis for agricultural lending. I plan on pursuing a career in dairy production. I will be doing an internship on a 700 cow dairy in northern New York this summer to get a feel for managing a farm and everything it entails.

Farm Credit Fellows

The Farm Credit Fellows program is once again getting students involved in Farm Credit and learning about ag lending by putting them out in offices throughout New York and New England. This week there are three students in Yankee territory alone. Another will come later in the summer.

The one-week internship program has 28 students this year from the University of Vermont, the University of Maine, and Cornell University. While visiting a Farm Credit office students are learning about the relationship between lenders and members, understanding financials, and how understanding the numbers can help you run a better business.

The students from the University of Vermont are pictured below at their spring trip to Farm Credit East in Enfield, CT.


The four Fellows that will be visiting Yankee Farm Credit are:
Cameron Clark - Newport, May 16-20
Katie Bliss - Middlebury, May 16-20
Ricky Hall - White River Junction, May 16-20
Cassie Osgood - St. Albans, August 15-19

For more info on the Farm Credit Fellows program contact Kelly Richardson in the Newport office.

Greg LeDuc

I am pleased to announce that Greg LeDuc has joined our staff as Chief Financial Officer. Greg came to Yankee from 13 years at Vermont Teddy Bear Company where he was most recently their Vice President, Finance. Greg lives in Colchester and will be working out of our Williston office. If you have the opportunity - stop by and say "hi" to Greg!