VT Vegetable and Berry Growers

Jean Conklin, Senior Loan Officer and Clara Hall, Credit Analyst, attended the VT Vegetable and Berry Growers Association Annual Meeting on January 30th. A crowd of over 100 attendees were welcomed with an upbeat report from their president, Andy Jones of Intervale Community Farm in Burlington. Despite a lousy weather year in 2011 it was a great time to be a Vermont produce grower. He highlighted the outpouring of community support throughout the year after each of its challenges and the way growers helped each other. There were also presentations by growers, suppliers, UVM Extension and VT Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross as well as an industry trade show.

VT Grazing and Livestock Conference

The 16th Annual VT Grazing and Livestock Conference held January 21st drew over 700 attendees this year, including Senior Loan Officer Jean Conklin and directors Paul Saenger and Walt Gladstone. Many came to hear one of the three keynote speeches by Dr. Temple Grandin from Colorado State University. Four hundred attendees heard her two presentations during the day focusing on animal behavior and humane handling. She has done extensive work on the design of handling facilities. Half the cattle in the U.S. and Canada are handled in equipment she has designed for meat plants. There were also numerous workshops related to grazing and pasture management as well as the trade show. That evening another crowd gathered to hear Dr. Grandin address seeing the world through the lens of autism.

Click here for a Burlington Free Press article about the conference.

Maple Sugaring Panel

Tom St. Pierre, loan officer from our St. Albans office, was on a Maple Sugaring Panel at Cold Hollow Career Center (CHCC) in Enosburg Falls on 2/1/2012. CHCC has a maple operation as part of their program and they wanted a panel of industry experts to educate the students on what it would take to establish their own operation after graduation. The conference room at CHCC was packed with 75 plus students, panelists, parents, and teachers, totaling almost 90 people.

Joining Tom on the panel were Karen Fortin of Carman Brook Farm who talked about marketing; Nancy Patch, Franklin County Forester who talked about how to keep the sugarbush healthy; David Butler from Leader Evaporator talked about the maple equipment needed and costs. Tom discussed business planning; financial planning; funding for loans; and overall commitment of a sugaring operation.

CenterPoint Training

Red Wing Software is offering training on their CenterPoint farm accounting software May 1-3 in Enfield, CT. If you are a Yankee Farm Credit customer using this software, you may be interested in one or more days of this training. Details here. Tuition cost is $200 per day. We will reimburse half the tuition cost for Yankee customers. For qualifying young, beginning or small farmer customers (including FarmStart), we will reimburse the full tuition cost. Please contact Ruchel St. Hilaire for tuition reimbursement. Participants will be responsible for their own hotel, travel and meals expense.

If you would like to purchase CenterPoint farm accounting software, please contact one of our branch offices.

Marie Guay Recognized with Phelps-Martin Award

Last summer Senior Loan Officer Marie Guay in our Chazy, NY office passed away after a short battle with cancer. Her memory was honored with the Phelps-Martin Award for Community Service last month at the Farm Credit Council annual meeting in Washington, DC. Several family members traveled to Washington for the occasion. Donald Guay, Marie's husband, received the award from FCC Board Chairman Mike Garnett:

Marie truly deserved this award. (Click here for more information about the Phelps-Martin Award for Community Service.) Marie lived her life in service to others. She was devoted to her family. She gave freely of her time and energy to her friends and neighbors. She was a leader in her church and also in Boy Scouts when her two sons were young. She was dedicated to her customers and co-workers at Farm Credit, and to the greater agricultural community in which she lived.

In 2005 Marie's boss and friend Gordon Hurlburt, a long-time employee of Yankee Farm Credit, was diagnosed with cancer. Marie became involved with the Plattsburgh Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research. Later in 2005 Marie's mother was also diagnosed with cancer. Gordon died in 2006 and Marie's mother died in 2007. Marie became increasingly involved in Relay for Life (see this blog post for example) serving first as Team Captain Chair and then as Survivor Committee Chair. Her last Relay was in June 2011. How ironic that Marie herself, who never smoked, should be diagnosed with lung cancer in July. She died on August 1, 2011 (obituary).

Marie's connections with Farm Credit ran deep. She started working for Farm Credit in the Chazy, NY office in 1983 as an office assistant, eventually advancing to senior loan officer. Marie and Donald also operated a family dairy farm and were Farm Credit customers. Their son Rob continues the tradition of Farm Credit employment, working as an appraiser trainee in the Chazy office.

Present for last month's presentation of the Phelps-Martin Award, in addition to family members, were several Yankee Farm Credit directors and employees and Congressman Bill Owens of Plattsburgh, NY. Before being elected to Congress, Mr. Owens was an association attorney for Yankee Farm Credit. Marie worked closely with him, and in fact left Farm Credit for six months in 1995 to work briefly for Mr. Owens.

Left to right in the photo below – Doris Trombley, Lisa Wener, Alan Bourbeau, Congressman Bill Owens, Walt Gladstone, Donald Guay, Rocky Giroux, Rob Guay, George Putnam, Kevin Guay, Steve Taylor, Rachel Dutil:

The Phelps-Martin Award for Community Service that Donald Guay is holding in the above photos:



We all wish that Marie herself was here to receive this award. She is greatly missed by everyone who knew her.