Newsletter - Association Insider

The first edition of our new newsletter, the Association Insider, was mailed today!

Click here to read it online.

Articles include:

• Is Farming a Business or Lifestyle?
• Westlands Farm Survives Despite Irene's Wrath
• Did You Know...Yankee Offers Crop Insurance?
• Payroll Changes for 2012
• Financial Status
• Maple Pudding Cake Recipe
• FarmStart Initiative - Steven Gleason and Michelle O'Rourke

We hope you enjoy our new newsletter. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know.

Celebrating the Fruits of Local Agriculture

Each Christmas Yankee directors and employees celebrate the diversity of local agriculture with a selection of tasty food products from farmers in Yankee's territory. This year's selection included:

Sausage - from Lincoln Farm in Randolph, VT
Eggnog - from Hatchland Farm in North Haverhill, NH
Landaff Cheese - from Landaff Creamery in Landaff, NH
Maple Syrup - from Doton Farm in Barnard, VT
Fudge - from Dutton Berry Farm in Newfane, VT
Wine - from Shelburne Vineyard in Shelburne, VT
Yogurt - from Kingdom Creamery in Hardwick, VT
Cookies - from Chazy Orchards in Chazy, NY

Once again we extend our sincere appreciation to all farmers in Yankee's territory for the wonderful bounty from their farms.

David Lane and Donald Wells

David Lane has accepted the position of Senior Loan Officer in our St. Albans branch. Dave started on November 30th. He has prior lending experience as an agricultural loan officer with Vermont Agricultural Credit Corporation (a division of VEDA) and for the Vermont Community Loan Fund where he was the Director of Lending. Prior to working at VACC, David was Deputy Secretary for the Vermont Agency of Agriculture and Executive Director of the Intervale Foundation. David and his wife Julie reside in South Hero where they own Crescent Bay Farm Bed and Breakfast. Dave is a graduate of the University of Vermont.

Donald Wells has joined Yankee as a Loan Officer, also in the St. Albans branch. Don was the General Manager and Controller for CDL, USA (a Canadian maple equipment company in St. Albans) and has experience in financial management and tax preparation having worked for Hub Transportation Insurance, IBM, Jacobs, Marchand, & Morrisette and KPMG, LLP. Don grew up in Sheldon and resides in Fairfield. Don is a graduate of Champlain College.

Both Dave and Don will also serve customers in Clinton County, New York, from our Chazy satellite office along with Tom St. Pierre and Chuck Custeau.

Producing Excellence

For Farm Credit's 95th anniversary celebration it is featuring the "strength, ingenuity and integrity of our nation's successful farmers and ranchers" by creating profiles for customers across the U.S. Yankee Farm Credit is proud to feature Jim and Jane Danyow of Ferrisburg, VT in this series of stories called "Producing Excellence."

Vanda Ripley

Yankee is pleased to have Vanda Ripley join our ranks as an accounting assistant working in the Williston office. Vanda is a graduate of the University of Vermont and comes to us by way of St. Michaels College where she was a payroll specialist. In addition to payroll, Vanda also has experience as a bookkeeper and a financial analyst. All of her experiences will help her handle the responsibilities of accounts payable, fixed assets and general ledger reconciliation, among many other duties.

Vanda currently lives in Underhill with her husband David and their son Parker. They also have a daughter, Emily, who lives in New Jersey. When not crunching numbers, Vanda enjoys being an amateur logger and reading her Kindle on the treadmill.

FarmStart - Corey and Ann Chapman

Yankee recently made its third FarmStart investment to Corey and Ann Chapman of Tunbridge, VT:

Corey, age 32, has worked on dairy farms all of his life. In addition he served in the military for 6 years (he returned from a year long deployment in Afghanistan last December) and he ran his own concrete business. Corey’s wife Ann is currently a stay at home mom and is expecting their fourth child in February. Corey also does some snow plowing which provides additional income during the winter months.

During the 10 years that he worked for a local dairy farmer, Corey decided that dairy farming was what he wanted to do with his life. After he returned from Afghanistan last year he began managing a herd with the hope to buy the animals down the road. The opportunity to purchase those animals presented itself this fall.

Corey purchased a 50 cow organic Holstein herd with annual production of over 22,000 lbs/cow. He will rent the facilities and will have access to 60 acres of pasture land. Along with conventional financing, Corey applied for an investment through FarmStart to help fund the purchase of the herd.

Yankee's FarmStart Advisor for the Chapmans is Morgan Greenwood Rilling, a loan officer in the White River Jct. office. Morgan says: "The Chapmans are the type of people that the FarmStart program was designed for and their eagerness and drive makes me look forward to being their advisor. They were excited to be given the opportunity to have someone work with them on the financial aspects of their business and felt that they could benefit greatly from a relationship with FarmStart."

ACORN Meeting

Yankee Director Paul Saenger and Senior Vice President Ken Button attended a day meeting held at the American Legion in Middlebury on November 10, 2011. The topic was “Financing the Working Landscape”. It was organized by the Addison County Relocalization Network (ACORN), the Addison County Economic Development Corporation (ACEDC) and the Addison County Regional Planning Commission. Follow this link to a news report by the Addison Independent, it gives an excellent overview of the conference.