When it came time to get a telephone, the phone company wouldn’t invest the money into installing telephone lines as the farm was so remote. My grandparents went to Utah, picked up telephone poles, wire and insulators from the Army surplus and installed phone lines. As a young boy, I helped with the hogs, cattle, chickens and whatever else needed to be done. When it came to keeping the farm equipment running, it was common to fly to equipment dealers with the family airplane and get the parts. I flew with my father and grandfather many times to pick up the needed parts. The day I turned 14, I made my first solo flight at the Syracuse airport. Growing up in this environment set the stage for learning about taking responsibility for your family, community and others less fortunate. That is one of the reasons why community banking is such an appealing and rewarding career. Did you always plan on going into banking? A career in banking just happened. After I graduated from K-State with a business law degree, I went home and started working on the family farm. I had just married, and the times were tough. One day, Farm Credit called me and offered me a job in Garden City. They already knew me and that I had a lifetime of dry land agricultural experience. It was a great experience. The manager did a wonderful job of getting our field department out and introducing us to all kinds of agribusinesses, feedlot owners and large operations. Sprinkler irrigation was coming into play at that time, and I quickly gained a lot of experience. About a year and a half later, I was promoted to be a lender. I developed my own portfolio and was doing well for myself. Then, I received a phone call from a Production Credit Association (PCA) in southeast Nebraska. They asked if I would want to come up there and be a credit director. I was there for three years, then back to Kansas as PCA president. That was during the ag financial crisis of the 80s. There were Farm Credit Association mergers and layoffs. Farm Credit needed a cash injection from the U.S. Treasury and as part of the action nearly all of the capital of the Farm Credit system was consolidated. That was hard to deal with because our PCA had worked hard to get financially where it was, then overnight, 80% of our capital was gone. 6
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