I hope you and your families are having a great summer. It is very hard to find more beautiful areas in our great country this time of year than northeast Wisconsin and Michigan. When you have lived in this area your whole life, you tend to take these springs, summers, and falls for granted.

I was reminded how beautiful our states are a couple of years ago when the CEO of AgHeritage Farm Credit Services, headquartered in Little Rock, Ark., visited a number of spots in Michigan during July. He still gushes over how beautiful Michigan is, whether it’s our farms, small towns, or plentiful lakes. 

Speaking of Arkansas, our Board of Directors and executive team are going to have a joint board meeting in August with the board and executive team of Farm Credit of Western Arkansas. GreenStone will host our guests in southwest Michigan. This will be the fourth year in a row where we have had a joint board meeting with some of our Farm Credit partners.

I fully expect we will have outstanding numbers to report to our board in August. Your association is off to a very strong start in 2026 from a financial standpoint. Loan growth, credit quality, profitability, operating efficiency, and capital all remain solid. GreenStone continues to be one of the top performing Farm Credit associations in the country when considering these financial categories and our Patronage payments. You, our owners and members, get to share in the value of doing business with a financial cooperative. Our financial strength also ensures GreenStone will continue to meet its mission, “To promote the success of our customers and the rural community by being the best at providing credit and financial services.” 

Farm Credit has been assisting farmers and rural communities for 110 years. We have seen a lot of cycles in all of our various commodities, and we continue to be here to help our members in all phases of the cycles you find yourselves in.

We also support our young farmers and youth in agriculture whenever possible.  GreenStone continues to support FFA and 4-H from a financial and leadership standpoint. Also, later in the magazine you will be introduced to our scholarship recipients for students studying agriculture in college. In addition, you will meet GreenStone’s summer interns. They are a very impressive group of future leaders.

The results of our customer satisfaction survey are expected later in July. For those of you that received the survey, thank you for taking the time to complete it.

Your association’s annual election process wrapped up in June, and I would like to welcome our newest GreenStone Directors: Lori Drozd and Joel Layman. They were both elected from Voting Region 4 (southwest Michigan). Lori lives in Allegan County and Joel resides in Berrien County. Welcome to GreenStone’s Board of Directors!

Re-elected from Voting Region 5 (central and west Michigan) were Jed Welder and Trent Hilding. Congratulations to our returning Directors!

I also wanted to recognize the service and contributions of one of our long-serving directors, Ed Reed from Cass County. Ed served on the GreenStone Board of Directors from June 2008 through June 2026. When Ed was first elected to the board, GreenStone’s total assets were approximately $4.4 billion. Today, our total assets exceed $16.1 billion. Total Patronage paid has increased from $13.5 million in 2008 to $125 million this year. Ed also served as our Board Chair from 2016 through 2025. I can’t thank Ed enough for the leadership and guidance he has provided GreenStone and me personally. Thank you, Ed for all of your contributions to our organization!

Speaking of our directors, Cheryl Motz, our senior executive assistant to the CEO, has announced her retirement. For the past 11 years, Cheryl has supported Dave Armstrong (former CEO), me, and our executive leadership team. She has also played a key role in supporting our Board of Directors and GreenStone’s corporate governance processes, including the elections of Directors and nominating committees. Cheryl will retire effective October 1, 2026, following a 44-year career with the Farm Credit System. She started her career with the Federal Land Bank Association of St. Johns when she was 17 years old! Her work has helped our members and supported many teams across our organization, beginning with branch support and including managing and leading teams within GreenStone. Cheryl’s attention to detail, strong follow-through, and deep knowledge of GreenStone will certainly be missed. A big thank you to Cheryl for the support and assistance she has provided me over my four years as CEO.

Again, I hope you have a great summer and very successful growing season and home construction season! Please feel free to reach out to me any time if I can ever be of assistance.

As always, thank you for feeding my family, our country and the world, and thank you for your membership!

 

To view the article in the online 2026 Summer Partners Magazine, click here.