Episode 17 Inside the Board Room
Join Caleb and Tom Zack as they introduce you to Patrick Higginbotham, our newly re-elected board member. Learn how Patrick got to know Ag Credit along with an inside look at what the board of directors do every month.
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[00:00:00.000] - Caleb Sadler
Welcome to Beyond Agriculture, the podcast that takes you beyond the scope of Ag and into the real life stories, conversations, and events taking place in our community. Who we are and what we do is Beyond Agriculture. Hello and welcome in to Beyond Agriculture. Caleb Sadler back with you. It's been a little bit since we've been in the studio recording, but we're joined today with Tom Zack Evans. We're in the Lexington office, and today we have a guest, our board of directors member, Patrick Higgenbotham. So welcome on, Patrick. How are you doing?
[00:00:42.420] - Patrick Higginbotham
I'm doing well. I'm glad to be here with you all today.
[00:00:44.930] - Caleb Sadler
Good. So now you were recently just reelected to the board of directors with Central Kentucky Ag Credit at the annual meeting that we had there at the end of February, first part of March. So tell us a little bit about yourself and give us some background with your family, and then we can kind of maybe get into the nuts and bolts of what you do as a director.
[00:01:05.250] - Patrick Higginbotham
Okay, so like Caleb said, Patrick Higginbotham wife Erica have three kids, twins Elliot and Aubrey, who are 15. And then I've got a 13 year old daughter, Evelyn. We both grew up in Agriculture. I grew up on a beef cattle farm. My dad worked for the Department of Agriculture, so he kind of operated like I did. He worked so he could afford to farm, so to speak. But his job was with NRCS, so he was always involved. Everything he did was involved in Agriculture. So by default, everything I did was kind of related to Agriculture. So I grew up on a beef cattle farm. My wife actually grew up on a dairy and her family crop, and they still crop several acres. Her dad has since he sold his dairy cows, but he still crops several acres. Then, I guess it's just always been that we've been around the farm and that's what we always wanted to do. So I went to school. I'm a pharmacist at the VA here in town. And then my wife is a dentist. She works with Beaumont Family Dentistry here in Lexington. And I say she works one day a week, and that gets me in trouble.
[00:02:17.510] - Patrick Higginbotham
She gets paid one day a week because she practices dentistry one day a week. She's very involved in what we do at the farm, and she homeschools our kids. So she works every day. She just gets paid for one of those days. So that's kind of who we are and our kind of day to day thing that we have going on.
[00:02:33.190] - Caleb Sadler
Got you. Now I'm going to give a background because I know you alluded to this before we started recording, but you've been out to the horse park today with the Kentucky Farm Bureau. I know you play a big role in that as well.
[00:02:46.470] - Patrick Higginbotham
I do. I got involved. It's kind of like everything else for I guess, farm kids, you just kind of gravitate toward other people that have like interests. And I actually had a neighbor, Bob James, who was very involved and has been basically since the beginning. And what that auction is, its a scholarship fundraiser. Very simply put, Fayette County Farm Bureau doesn't keep any of that money. And so we offer scholarships and it's usually $40,000 or $50,000 worth of money that Fayette County kids get. So they approached me about it several years Ago because, like I said, Mr. James is my neighbor and it's like, yeah, why wouldn't I help with this? So it's a consignment sale. It's all volunteer. We enjoy it. And I enjoy it mostly because it's just for good cause. There's not really anything bad about it. So I've helped with that for several years. I couldn't tell you how long, but it's been several years that I was.
[00:03:40.010] - Caleb Sadler
Going to say when I was back in Lexington, I know you were still there working as well. And that's been several years Ago.
[00:03:45.030] - Patrick Higginbotham
It's probably been eight or nine years because it was a few years after we bought the farm. We bought the farm in '08. So there was a few years that I was trying to get to know people and that's kind of how that happened.
[00:03:57.640] - Caleb Sadler
So now on the farm that you all have here in Fayette County, you all do boarding and do you all do some custom hay work?
[00:04:03.520] - Patrick Higginbotham
Yeah, we do a little bit of hay work. So we actually bought what was the Manley Farm. Some people in Lexington might still remember that name. It was a pretty significant family here in Fayette County, and they were general Ag for a long time. And then one of the brothers and his wife started boarding horses and we bought that. That was, like I said, in 2008. And so we board horses. We have 35 horses on the farm. And then we square bale, several bales of hay and sell it off the farm, sell it to the borders and then sell it off the farm as well. Just whatever we whatever we have in excess of what we need ourselves, we sell off the farm.
[00:04:39.220] - Caleb Sadler
That works well, though, to be able to put the hay up on the farm and then sell back to the borders. Gives you a market to get rid of it as well, too.
[00:04:45.680] - Patrick Higginbotham
It does, and it helps. I mean, one of the things that always that we talk about is everybody that has a horse there sees it from start to finish because they can see the field it comes out of. They can see it when we cut it. They know what the weather is like when it gets handled. So as far as, like, full disclosure hay, it's right there. And I'm not saying that anybody else doesn't do that, but it's always good because we've been fortunate, we've been able to put up good hay. And then there's just really not that much question about it. So it works really good because they literally see it from start to finish every time we cut. So that works really well, too. So there's no speculation about what might have happened with your hay. Yeah.
[00:05:25.430] - Tom Zack Evans
What kind of horses do you have on the farm?
[00:05:27.570] - Patrick Higginbotham
There's a mix of everything. Because we're in Central Kentucky, there's always a lot of Thoroughbreds out there we don't have in training race horses. Most everything we have is second career. So Thoroughbreds that don't run fast in a circle are typically not worth a whole lot of money.
[00:05:44.640] - Caleb Sadler
That's true.
[00:05:45.230] - Patrick Higginbotham
But they can be worth a fair amount of money as a hunter jumper or as a show jumper, as an event horse. So I would say 80% of what's on the farm right now, I'd have to think and do some math, but I would say 80% of them are retrained thoroughbreds. Second career Thoroughbreds. We've got two or three Quarter Horses. We've got an Arabian, we've had some draft breeds that people ride. So it's kind of we have jumping facilities and we have some event facilities on the farm. But for most part, most of the people, they have horses because they enjoy horses and they can ride as a pleasure thing and pleasure for everybody's a little bit different. So some of them ride in a ring, some of them go back in a hay field and ride around. It just depends. But mostly Thoroughbreds with a balance of Quarter horse, Arabian. We've had a couple of Tennessee walking horses, just a variety. Mostly Thoroughbreds, though.
[00:06:38.910] - Tom Zack Evans
You mentioned square belt hay production.
[00:06:41.000] - Patrick Higginbotham
Of course.
[00:06:41.310] - Tom Zack Evans
That's what my family and I do over in Harrison County. Have you all gotten mechanized with the Accumulator bale wAgon or anything?
[00:06:49.890] - Patrick Higginbotham
Probably. Five or six years Ago I bought a Kuhn, which is now Nordan Accumulator. We went through several options and it just came down to I'd always had pretty good luck getting labor. And quite frankly, there's usually a lot of young guys from church. And then it just got to where what I run into with farm labor more than anything is there's usually some young guys and a lot of parents who are like, get my boys out there and get them to work.
[00:07:18.250] - Caleb Sadler
Get them working great.
[00:07:19.340] - Patrick Higginbotham
The problem is, and this is not a criticism, but the problem is and I'm sure you all run into it, too the farm doesn't stop at 4:30, especially in the hay field. We're just getting goine. That's prime time. And so I was losing all my help at 05:00. And it was legitimate stuff. I mean, the kids had baseball or they had church or they had something else significant to do, but we still had a lot of hay laying out there, and so I'm laying awake at night because hay is still out there and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. So I was just like, dad and I were talking to my wife and we were just like, we got to make this where we can do it primarily. So got an accumulator and grapple. I had a skid steer so I didn't have to deal with that and the barn we were putting it in was already set up for that because when I built it, I kind of built it envisioning it. Yeah. So that we could mechanize that part of it. So that's how we put everything up. So as it's been lately, my dad bales Elliot, my son, rakes and either pulls wAgons or my daughter, one of my two daughters do and then I load and unload it.
[00:08:23.590] - Patrick Higginbotham
So it's pretty much an in house deal now, which is nice because at least for the next few years I've got a significant level of control over my labor. My kids are getting older and they're busy, so that's not always going to be the case. But for now,
[00:08:40.020] - Tom Zack Evans
That's what my daughter, she's going to be twelve this year, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to teach her how to she can run the skid steer, but she really hasn't learned to grapple hay yet with the skid steer or stack it. So I'm really looking forward to this summer teaching her that so I have some help for future.
[00:08:57.820] - Patrick Higginbotham
Well I know everybody in this room, all of us had to start somewhere and I mean my dad was great because he turned me loose with a lot of stuff at a pretty young Age but I was never out of sight. Now obviously I could have got, there's all kinds of arguments for how young a kid should be. I mean, I think, like in my house, some of my kids are more careful and understand how the mechanics of a piece of equipment work better than others. And so I can trust them a little bit more. And you don't have to tell every detail quite as much, but they're never going to learn if they never do it. And doing that means they're going to mess something up at some point because, I mean, I've bent and broke stuff that I wish I didn't, but I did. And dad, we fixed it and we went on and he has told me before you get experience the moment just after you needed it, sometimes that's just after you've broken something. Exactly. And I'll be honest with you. This isn't to sound romantic or anything. I don't get that sentimental about stuff.
[00:10:02.510] - Patrick Higginbotham
But when you're in the hay field and it's your dad and your son, your daughters, your wife, on and off, it's like, this is good. This is a good thing that we're all here together. Nobody's fighting, everybody's working. That's good I think. And that's one of the best things about Agriculture probably.
[00:10:18.090] - Tom Zack Evans
Oh yeah. And that's a huge portion of our borrower base and our customers at Ag Credit are what we refer to as lifestyle, which I put myself in that category. We're not going to get rich off of it. We hope to be somewhat profitable, but it's a lifestyle that we enjoy.
[00:10:35.580] - Patrick Higginbotham
Absolutely.
[00:10:35.920] - Tom Zack Evans
It's how we want to raise our family. I don't want to live in town. I want to be in the country. I want to try to make a little profit off the land if I can, and try to teach my kids responsibility and work ethic. And I just feel like it's a good way to do that.
[00:10:50.450] - Caleb Sadler
Yeah, work ethic, I think, is the big one, because that's something that you learn on being on a farm. You learn how to do a task and get it done, and that's something that's really good.
[00:11:01.190] - Patrick Higginbotham
Well, that's what we talked about, because the funny part of the story with us boarding horses is, like I said, Erica grew up on a dairy. I grew up on a cattle farm. And we found this place. She's like the first comment to her or to me when we're with the Realtor is like, she leans over in my ear and she's like, we don't know anything about boarding horses. And I was like, well, we can learn. Of course I wanted a farm. But one of my points was we both wanted our kids on a farm for the reasons that you all just said. And I'm thinking I'm thinking back about raising baby calves like bottle calves. It wasn't hard, but you had to do it every single day. And so I told Erica, I was like, this has built in the very thing that you want the most for your kids. And it's Friday night and they're wanting to go to a movie, and they're like, dad, do you care if I got a movie with so and so? And I'm like, did you feed? Because they gotta be. And and it's even more so in our case, at least in my opinion, because they belong to somebody else.
[00:12:00.390] - Tom Zack Evans
They cannot be neglected.
[00:12:01.680] - Patrick Higginbotham
So you can't just say, well, I'll feed in the morning, or I'll do it when I get home, because those people expect us to, as well they should, because they're paying us. So that's the other thing about it, is it's just a built in responsibility that they have. And I will say, not that there's never days where they're like, I really don't want to go to the barn, but I would say 99 days out of 100, they love it and they're engAged and they want to do it. And to what you talked about, I think, Tom Zack, about living in town, I cannot tell you how many times we will drive because most of our friends live in neighborhood. I have no disrespect for a neighborhood, but we'll drive out, and I don't think it's with any pretentiousness or anything, but one of my three kids will be like, mom, dad, thank you that we don't have to live in a neighborhood like this, and we got space to live and all that. So then I'm like, okay, good, we made the right decision.
[00:12:50.030] - Caleb Sadler
Yeah, I can relate to that right now. So I grew up on a farm and lived on a farm my entire life. And then when Morgan and I got married, we moved into our house in town. Well, we drive 30 minutes back one direction to the farm and 30 minutes back home, and I can tell you, it gets pretty old sometimes driving back and forth. So it does. There's something about being on a farm that's very peaceful. There's no doubt.
[00:13:12.760] - Patrick Higginbotham
Yeah, I Agree. I don't have anything.
[00:13:15.630] - Tom Zack Evans
We've seen a big movement in the last three years, really since 2020. And you could attribute some of it to COVID, whatever, but at Ag Credit, we've seen a lot of out of state buyers come in here that are from some of these larger populations, and then they just want space. They don't care if it's flat land, if it's hilly land, horse farm, cattle farm, what. They just want space. They want land. And like I said, we've seen a big transition in the last few years.
[00:13:46.660] - Caleb Sadler
I would Agree with that. So as we move on, kind of talking a little bit about the tasks that we've got in front of us, I guess you could say, tell us about your story of how you became involved with Ag Credit and how, I guess you could say your relationship with Ag Credit started.
[00:14:05.390] - Patrick Higginbotham
I tell people a lot, and I have for the last several years, that I really only have one. My life is not that exciting. I only really have one story, and I'm lucky. Erica and I dated in high school. We got married when we were in professional school. I have a fantastic family. And what I talked about wanting to get back to the farm when we got finished with or when we were nearing the end of school, we got pretty involved in a campus ministry at UK. Felt like God wanted us to stay in Lexington. Well, all I ever wanted to do was farm with my dad in Columbia, Kentucky, where I grew up. If you to ask me from 12 to 20, it would have been an unequivocal, this is what I want to do, period. End of story. Didn't want to stay in Lexington. Didn't like Lexington was a big city. I didn't want any part of it. Well, then you feel like God's saying, do something, and you're like, well, I can't really argue with that. So we lived in a neighborhood for a couple of years. We stayed in Lexington. We committed to staying in Lexington.
[00:15:06.770] - Patrick Higginbotham
And then I would look for real estate periodically and kind of get down in the dumps about it because I was like, I'm never going to be able to afford this. And we finally found a place that had this boarding income on it that seemed like might be something that could work, that could help offset what the land value was along with our salaries. I have an uncle who was a Vice President of a bank at home and he was for my first phone call because he's the only person I knew really. And he had given us a loan on the house. I called him and I said, Ronald, this is the situation. This is how much they're asking. This is what I make. This is what Erica is making. Can we do this? And he called me back that afternoon. He's like, yeah, you can do it. The problem is I can only lock your rate for three years. I was like, there's no and he's like, I wouldn't advise it he's like, you need to talk to some other people because if it goes prime and it does what it's done this year and I'd have been two years in, we would have lost the place because I couldn't have paid what that payment would have gone to.
[00:16:08.650] - Patrick Higginbotham
And so I talked to my father-in-law, talked to one of the guys at another bank at home who he had dealt with a long time, same deal. And I talked to him. I talked to that fellow basically to say am I crazy for even thinking about this? He's like, no, you absolutely should do it. You need to talk to an Ag Lender. So this is all happening fast. This is like a 24-hour period that all these conversations are happening. Well, John Peek in the Stanford office, John and I are college roommates, had been friends for a long time. John is still one of my closest dearest friends. And I called John and I've told this story at the annual meeting. But John is super chill, super laid back kind of guy. And you would expect when I called him to say something like, yeah, let me take a look at it. I'll see what I can come up with. I'll call you back in a little bit. John ended the conversation with and he probably could tell because he knew me well enough that I was kind of amped up about the whole thing.
[00:16:56.610] - Patrick Higginbotham
And he was like, don't talk to anybody else until you hear back from me. Just don't do it. So I paced around our living room for 2 hours and he finally called me back and he's like, this is what I can do. We can do a 20 year lock this much. And I'm like, yeah, but that rate. And he's like, you can't afford to not do my rate. Which is not like him either. To say at that firm. It was the most no brainer decision we've ever made. It was anxiety provoking because it was so much money to a 30-year-old kid. I thought I was myself as still a kid. But that's where it started with Ag Credit and what I would say about Ag Credit that I've learned since then because John and I were friends. So it's like you feel like you got an inside, you know I can call John this afternoon if I want to because we're buddies. What I came to learn in the process, when I would stop in the office down there, when I would stop in the Lexington office, is that you guys are doing that with everybody, if you're best friends or if you're just loan officer.
[00:17:54.490] - Patrick Higginbotham
So then I was like, okay, this outfit is different. They really want to take care of everybody. Where it came to pass at one point was when you all were doing PPPs last year. I called John and said, what's going on here? And he's like, you're eligible. You need to do it. You were at the bottom of my list to call. And the reason was and I was glad I was, because he knew that he could take care of mine, but he wanted to get everybody else's before he got there because he knew we could deal with mine on the back end. So those kind of things like that. And I know I mean, I've talked to both of you about stuff like this. You all just take care of people. And I think this outfit is successful, and it's helped Agriculture in Central Kentucky a lot just because, one, you all you're good at what you do. I think you care about the customers that you take care of. But I think the other thing that you've both already talked about is that you're all involved in most of our staff is involved in some level with Agriculture, and I just think that's unique, because if you just stepped into a local bank here, no disrespect to them, but the things that you all have both talked about already, Agriculture is just different.
[00:19:07.080] - Caleb Sadler
You just don't get the vibe that you get here.
[00:19:09.160] - Patrick Higginbotham
Well, and are just so many variables that you all know that are out there that unless you do it every day, you don't know. My dad, like I said, he worked for NRCS, and he always would tell people and say to me, I don't think I could ever be as good at my job as I need to be unless I farmed. Now, he loved to farm, but he almost felt a responsibility to as part of his job, if that makes sense. And I feel like you all are that way, too. It's just kind of all of who you are, but it makes you good at what you do.
[00:19:36.220] - Caleb Sadler
It goes back to what we really pride ourselves on, too, at Central Kentucky Ag Credit, and that's being the relationship lender that we are. And we go back. I mean, we try to know the ins and outs of everybody's operation.
[00:19:47.430] - Tom Zack Evans
It's not just one deal, and we're done. We're not just going to make you the land loan and then we're done with you. We're here for all your needs, those farm improvement loans, livestock, equipment. And now after eleven years, I've got people's, kids coming now.
[00:20:05.720] - Patrick Higginbotham
Sure. And where we've helped, doesn't that make you feel young?
[00:20:08.400] - Tom Zack Evans
Oh, gosh. And then where we've helped with the high schoolers, going in the classroom for the last ten plus years, helping with high schoolers. We've seen them come to us now for loan.
[00:20:22.550] - Caleb Sadler
Well, and really, everybody that's here at Ag Credit, we all give back to the community, whether that's regardless of being a Board of Director or down to the staff side, I mean, we all really pride ourselves too, on being involved in the community that we serve.
[00:20:36.890] - Patrick Higginbotham
Yeah, I think I appreciate that because it's not just lip service. Those same conversations come up in the board room, not in a particular like, well, we need to make sure that we hold on to relationships. It's just this is who we are, so we have to maintain that culture. It comes in more when you're hiring people because you want to make sure they get it and they're the right fit for the customer base we have and what the association's values are, because we could go hire the next hotshot kid, that's really good, but if they don't fit here, they don't fit and they're not successful and would probably be frustrated themselves, quite frankly.
[00:21:14.490] - Caleb Sadler
So going back so you currently serve on the board of directors, and you just got reelected to a new firm. So how long have you served on the board? And tell us a little bit about the roles that you do as a board member.
[00:21:27.870] - Patrick Higginbotham
I'm starting my second term, so I've served for four. I have run twice. I ran probably six or seven years ago against Jim Rankin. Quite frankly, I'm glad I didn't beat him because, well, he's a fantastic board member and so I'm glad I didn't beat him. But there was an open seat. A couple of years later, Mr. May stepped out of his seat and so there was an open seat, and I was fortunate enough to get that and then was fortunate enough to stay on here recently. So four years, and then starting my second four year term, and I guess the number one, and it just came to pass in the last year, the number one responsibility of the board is to hire the CEO and to, I guess, manage the CEO, which is obviously Jonathan Noe. So we had a pretty challenging task ahead of us over the last couple of years because Jim Caldwell, Mr. Caldwell had given us kind of a notice. He gave us a long term notice on that he was going to retire. So then we went through the process of hiring so long and short of it that's our number one bare bones responsibility.
[00:22:39.490] - Patrick Higginbotham
Beyond that, a lot of it is making sure that we are operating in accordance with all of Farm Credit Administration national kind of higher level their rules, banking rules, making sure all of that audit stuff and the things that you all are doing every day is kind of up to snuff with regard to what's required of a financial organization. So we see all audit results, we approve those. One thing I tell people all the time, we don't approve loans, we don't even approve big loans. You all do that. We don't need to do that. We see them on the back end, but we don't do anything like that. But I would say the main thing is making sure that we are being run in a wise, responsible way because we are a co-op. So we're responsible to the rest of the membership to make sure that we're secure financially. Now you all are doing the nuts and bolts of that. We just kind of see a 30,000-foot view of it, but then we have to make sure all the regulatory stuff is okay. So there's a lot of kind of tedious details that we have to deal with.
[00:23:49.210] - Patrick Higginbotham
It's been really good because I think all of us, none of us that are elected are financial professionals. So it forces you to do a lot of work outside of class, basically, so that you know what you're doing, so that you are doing the thing that you're responsible for. But I would say those are the biggest things that we do. And then there were things like this building that we're sitting in, we were responsible for buying it. So there's things like that that come up that you don't really think about until UK approaches you to buy your other location.
[00:24:23.370] - Caleb Sadler
So I will say some of the listeners probably are not real familiar with Central Kentucky Ag Credit. And for those listeners, we are a cooperative, we are member-owned. But what I would ask though, is how many board of directors are there and how many are elected positions?
[00:24:41.040] - Patrick Higginbotham
So five are elected and that's elected by stockholders. So anybody that has a loan that has stock in Central Kentucky Ag Credit gets to vote at our annual meeting. They have that option. And then we have two outside directors, which the easiest way to understand it is basically an appointed position. And one of those has to be a financial expert. So Mary Lynn Hinkle, who's a CPA who has a career in finance for different organizations in this area, she's one. And then our other outside director, Dan Grigson, has retired from the extension service at the UK. So he has kind of that expertise that he can give. So it's our board here. Different associations across the country have different numbers of board members, usually depending on how big they are.
[00:25:31.160] - Caleb Sadler
I was going to say it probably correlates to the size of the association.
[00:25:33.940] - Patrick Higginbotham
It's financial size and then geographic size too, how spread out they are. We're fortunate in that regard because we're all pretty close together.
[00:25:41.420] - Caleb Sadler
Yeah, we service 17 counties.
[00:25:43.030] - Patrick Higginbotham
Yeah, like there's an association that in our district, in the Ag First District that is part of part of them is in East Tennessee and part of it is in West Tennessee and West Kentucky. And there's nothing of their association between there. So you got to have some board members that represent those eastern, those eastern areas. But all of those things go into how many board members there are. That's what we have. And then we all set on there's some committees that are required. There's an audit committee, there's an HR committee, and the way our board is set up is that we are on all of those committees too. So it really works well because we're all involved in all of those decisions.
[00:26:22.830] - Caleb Sadler
You know, what's going on at that point in time. Nobody's left out decision or anything like that. Well, Patrick, is there really anything else you want to tell us about that's kind of unique about the board and your role there?
[00:26:40.110] - Patrick Higginbotham
I don't know if it's unique. I would say I've been involved in a fair number of civic, private, nonprofit kind of deals. And I don't say that with any pretense. It's just wanting to be able to serve and give my time to stuff. And I'm not saying this because I'm on it. This is probably one of it's hands down the best board I've ever sat on and the most functional. And I think it's just because of the people that are on it and what you all talked about earlier, the culture of the organization, because we're all stockholders that gets passed into the board even before you're on the board. So that culture kind of passes back and forth. It's kind of an osmotic kind of thing. So it's a really good board. I think I can say without any kind of speculation sitting in those boardroom meetings, I can tell you that nobody in there is angling for something for themselves, for themselves or for their family, or to try to make it better. All of those conversations are one how do we serve the people that we're serving in these counties the best? And then how do we give you all the tools that you need to be able to serve them the best?
[00:27:57.580] - Patrick Higginbotham
Now, I wouldn't argue that we're always perfect at that, but I would argue that the motivation is that we may miss a detail for some reason in that direction, but I would argue with anybody that there's nobody in that room that is not looking out for the membership and for the big picture. And it's really good because there's a varied background of all those. You got Lee, who runs an Agribusiness feed store, farm supply store. You got Joe Meyer, who's big time registered Angus cattle, Mr. Rankin, they've got cattle and crop and a whole bunch of stuff going on in Paris. And Dan was Extension. Mary Lynn doesn't really have an Ag background, but she has a finance background but I can tell you she's embraced who Ag Credit is to a significant, real significant degree. And then you got Mr. Lyons, our chairman, who has been on Southern States's board. He's given his adult life to being part of Agriculture. He's got a stocker operation, they crop. So he's involved in everything on all levels. And I will tell you, he in particular, he studies finance and he studies the details in the legislation.
[00:29:20.430] - Patrick Higginbotham
And when we get into a board meeting, he knows everything that's going on before we ever start. So he's another very valuable asset, I think to our association, just because he is so well versed in so many things that are going on.
[00:29:33.420] - Caleb Sadler
I'll also add to that too, he just actually served a term with our Ag First Funding Bank in Columbia, South Carolina. So he actually represented Central Kentucky Ag Credit on that board and not just Ag Credit, but represented the farmers of Central Kentucky on that board as well in Columbia.
[00:29:51.270] - Patrick Higginbotham
So there's all this variety of and you got me who's kind of quasi in the equine world in Lexington, the off farm income and then the off farm income sector. So there's just a big variety of people and it kind of works well together because it seems like everybody's got a little bit to say about whatever topic comes up. Because if there's cattle issues, we got people who can deal with that. If there's equine issues, we can deal with that. If there's just general finance issues, we can deal with that. And so it's nice and Dan too, he's interested in all the legislative things, which a lot of people aren't, but it's necessary because that affects everything we do, whether it's at Frankfort or Washington or local in local governments, because all of those things affect what we're able to do and how we're able to do it. So you have a fellow like that who's interested in those topics and talking to legislators and talking to local officials and that's important. So it all goes back to what.
[00:30:47.010] - Caleb Sadler
You said and we live it every day as a staff and all the way up to the board. It's all about the membership and being there for them and being the relationship lender with them. Well Patrick, as we wrap up today, we really appreciate you coming on and being part of the podcast. We really hope that we get to have you back on at some point in time and I hope your next four year term with the association in terms of the Board of Directors goes really smoothly as well.
[00:31:12.790] - Patrick Higginbotham
Yeah, me too.
[00:31:14.230] - Caleb Sadler
As we wrap up, we want to thank our listeners for joining us today and be sure to go out and like subscribe and share our podcast and we thank you for tuning in to Beyond Agriculture.
[00:31:26.810] - Speaker 4
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