I have said this before, but it bears repeating. I have the best job in the world. We are blessed with the greatest customers and owners any business can have, and I get to lead a team of dedicated and knowledgeable teammates that put our customers first every day. GreenStone is also one of the best performing Farm Credit associations in the country. Which certainly means we are also one of the top performing financial institutions in the country.
Association Update
Your association continues to perform very well financially. GreenStone is one of the most profitable Farm Credit associations from a return on assets and return on capital perspective. It is also one of the most efficiently run associations in the country. All of that directly supports our financial strength and, ultimately, the ability to share our profits back to you through our Patronage program.
In July we also were given our “report card” from our members. The results of our customer satisfaction survey were again excellent. Just over 95% of our customers responded satisfied or very satisfied with GreenStone. All of our branches and business lines had excellent results. However, a few of our branches really stood out. Our Hart branch achieved 100% satisfaction for the fourth year in a row and our Mt. Pleasant branch earned that rating for the third year in a row. For those of you that received the survey, thank you again for taking the time to complete it. We read every comment, good and bad, and we take your feedback to heart and use those comments to continue to try to improve our performance. I want to thank all of my GreenStone teammates for continuing to put our Customers First every day – one of our core values we strive to live each day.
Industry Update
GreenStone continues to have a very diversified loan portfolio. This corresponds with the wide variety of agricultural commodities produced in Michigan and Wisconsin. Your association’s diversification allows us to be a dependable and competitive source of credit during all phases of an agriculture cycle. There are portions of the agricultural sector that are stressed today. Generally, if you are feeding grain and raising animals, the market is doing okay. If you have a cash crop operation and are growing corn, soybeans and/or wheat, it is much more of a struggle to find positive margins. It would certainly help if we could get China to buy commodities at historical levels and other countries to reduce barriers to market access.Please know that Farm Credit is having many conversations with representatives in Washington, D.C. regarding financial assistance for growers until the tariff agreements get worked out. In the meantime, if your financial projections show your cash flow getting tight, please make sure you are talking to your GreenStone financial services officer sooner rather than later. We have been through these cycles before and given adequate time and transparent communication, we can help you with your strategies to navigate the financial challenges you are facing.
While some of our commodity prices continue to be challenged, land values remain strong. Later in this magazine we again share the results of our land benchmark appraisals. There you’ll find that land values continue to increase throughout most sectors of Michigan and northeast Wisconsin. As a sidenote, I live in Shiawassee County located in mid-Michigan. In early September, there was a land auction for over 1,000 acres of high-quality ground. In my view, prices for the parcels were very strong - good news for the seller’s estate. I was also happy to see that the buyers will most likely keep the land in production agriculture.
Leadership Update
On August 18, 19, and 20, the GreenStone executive team and our Board of Directors held our board meeting and our annual planning meeting in Green Bay, Wisc.. As part of this, we also welcomed Farm Credit Services of Mandan for a joint board meeting. FCS of Mandan, headquartered in Mandan, N.D., is a partner in both our technology and capital markets collaborations. Our executive team and board thought this would be another great opportunity to get to know our counterparts from another association and use the time to share our successes and challenges. This is the third year we have held a joint meeting with another association. We each discussed how we serve our customers, our technology strategies and challenges and various other topics. The insights gained will strengthen our alignment and provide fresh perspective to our own association operations.
Additionally, after 22 years of dedicated service to GreenStone and 40 years as an information services (IS) professional, Steve Junglas, executive VP & chief informational officer has announced his retirement from GreenStone. Steve has announced his retirement from GreenStone effective February 3, 2026.
Throughout his tenure at GreenStone, Steve has played a key role in advancing our technology landscape. He has led large-scale projects, introduced new programs and tools, and helped the organization evolve through innovation and thoughtful leadership. Among Steve’s many contributions, one of the most impactful has been his ability to build a very strong, talented IS team - bringing in some of the best and brightest technology professionals in the Midwest.
Steve will continue to lead the IS Department in the months ahead as we determine his successor. I want to thank Steve for all of his contributions to GreenStone and his outstanding leadership.
That’s about it for this quarter. As always, thank you for feeding me, my family, our country and the world, and thank you for your membership and commitment to GreenStone!
Please reach out to me any time I can be of assistance.
To view the rest of the 2025 fall Partners articles please click here.
