Corner Office Interview with RVAC CEO, Kyle Yancey

Speaker 1
Welcome to Back To Your Roots, a podcast that provides insight into all things farming, financing, and farm life, guiding you back to your roots.

Speaker 1
Welcome to Back to Your Roots episode one. I'm your host Chris Griffin, along with Jordan Turnage. We're going to introduce ourselves and go from there. So Jordan, do you want to start.

Speaker 2
You know, worst is first, so we'll just get going on that one. My name is Jordan Turnage. I'm a loan officer here for River Valley AgCredit. Been here for three years now. I've worked in Western Kentucky in my time here with Fulton, Carlisle, Ballard, McCracken Counties. Fourth generation farmer on both sides of my family from the Bootheel, Missouri area. Been married to my wonderful wife Wendy for five years this July. Wendy is going into her 9th year teaching this fall and her second year in her new role as a teacher in special education. She's obviously my better half. Our sweet Caroline, as we call her, is a year and a half now, and she's my little best friend. I'm a Murray State Ag business grad. I graduated from college and started working at Tennessee Farmers Co-op so on their managerial training program there in Obion and Dyer County, Tennessee. But for me personally, I love working here in Ballard County. And I know I work in a noble profession that strives to help the stewards of God's land succeed here at River Valley AgCredit. That's a little bit about me.

Speaker 3 A little bit.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 2
Well, we got to figure out a way to get thirty minutes.

Speaker 1
I'm not just saying this because obviously, Jordan's here, but I can speak for Jordan. I've worked with him for over a year and he's a great, great guy. And everything he just said, he absolutely lives and stands by that on a daily basis when he works at River Valley. So it's enjoyable working with you and having you as a colleague. But I'm your other host.

Speaker 2
The hostess, the hostess with the mostest.

Speaker 1
And so my name is Chris Griffin, and now I'm not going to have nearly the ag background that Mr. Jordan had, but I'm getting there.

Speaker 3
You got your fair share working on the turf.

Speaker 1
I'm originally from here, from Paducah, born and raised. Went to Paducah Tilghman High School as a blue tornado. So ended up going to Murray State on a golf scholarship. And so golf has always been a huge part of my life. It still is. From there went four years at Murray and ended up graduating with my Master's in 2010 and went on from there to coaching college for six years. And so I've coached collegiate golf. I've been a realtor, which that's what my dad was for 30-something years, a realtor and auctioneer in Western Kentucky. And so I was around that my entire life and then got into sales. So I was actually a sales rep for a construction company. And so I would say my sales experience was a good, great, experience there and put me in some uncomfortable situations, sitting in people's kitchen tables presenting stuff that they really didn't want to buy and what they had to. And then I went from there and worked at a no-name bank here in Paducah. That was a mortgage lender there. Then River Valley came calling one day, and they were like, do you want to be an ag lender?

Speaker 1
And I'm like, Well, I don't know much about ag, but I said, I can figure it out, and I promise you I've learned a lot more in the last year and fell in love with I mean, just got some great relationship with my borrowers and portfolio and Ballard and McCracken.

Speaker 1
So it's been really good.

Speaker 1
A little bit about just kind of personal stuff outside of that. My wife and I, we've been married for four years. We've got a two-year-old boy, Emmett. He's a mess. They call him the smiley bulldozer at preschool, so he's a dandy, and he's never met a stranger. And he's spoiled rotten at River Valley, too. So I bring him over here, and all the girls basically spoil him. But yeah, that's a little bit about me. Like I said, I love what I do here. I've learned so much on the ag side this year and looking forward to doing this podcast with Jordan.

Speaker 2
It's going to be an adventure, that's for sure.

Speaker 1
Yeah. And I think just growing some exposure for River Valley and become a valuable resource for our borrowers and people in the communities.

Speaker 2
100%.

Speaker 2
I completely agree.

Speaker 1
I didn't say anything good about Kyle, but we haven't got there yet.

Speaker 3 That's okay.

Speaker 3
Nobody ever does.

Speaker 2
We were leading up to that. We're trying to butter ourselves up to look good for our boss here.

Speaker 1
I got to do that. Shea sets us up. You do your first podcast and the first podcast you got...

Speaker 1
You probably got the most rowdy person for your first one.

Speaker 1
You got to interview your CEO of the company. I mean, that's a little nerve-wracking. My gosh.

Speaker 2
I've been out of town.

Speaker 1
I hope I don't say anything bad here. This may be my last podcast, first and last episode. Who knows.
 
Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 2
So got Kyle strapped down in here in the office, so we're going to.

Speaker 2
Just kind of talk to him.

Speaker 2
He's our guest here today. Kyle, thank you so much for coming in. Kyle Yancey is our president and CEO of River Valley AgCredit. Multiple years under his belt here. Happy to serve under him. Just thankful that we've got such a good CEO and boss that we can take the time to come in here and sit with us and have this conversation.

Speaker 2
So. Kyle thanks for coming in. I sure appreciate it.

Speaker 1
I know this because I work here, but to our listeners, can you tell us what a cooperative is? We're a cooperative and kind of what that looks like compared to a lot of our competitors and other lending institutions in the community.

Speaker 3
Yes. So every association in the Farm Credit System is a cooperative.

Speaker 3
River Valley is proud to be what we call a truly functioning cooperative. A lot of moving parts to that.

Speaker 3
There's several cooperatives in our area, but we even function a little bit different than them.

Speaker 3
We live our lives at River Valley to give back to the membership that borrows here, that borrows money here. And when we say give back, not only do we give back to the community that we serve, but we actually cut a check.

Speaker 3
It's called a patronage check. Some people can think of it as.

Speaker 3
A dividend, but we give as much of our profits that we can withstand back to the people that borrow money. It's called stock. To get a loan here, you have to buy a certain amount of stock.

Speaker 3
That stock actually goes into the capital of our association, the protection of our association fully refundable. Some people can think of it as a membership fee, but that brings you into a membership of River Valley AgCredit.

Speaker 3
Now, there are co-ops around and how many checks do you get from some of those co-ops?

Speaker 3
You really don't.

Speaker 3
But they may do their benefits a different way through either lowering the cost of their services. Ours is simply we make loans.

Speaker 3
That's all we do is we make loans. We charge a marketable rate for those loans.

Speaker 3
We use that money, the interest income off of that to basically pay the people that make the loans, keep the lights on.

Speaker 3
We set a certain amount for capital, which is for this kind of podcast, elementary explanation of that, protection of the association from losses through the credit portfolio. And we do other things with it.

Speaker 3
And then whatever's left at the end.

Speaker 3
Of the year, we give back to the members.

Speaker 3
You can think of it as buckets.

Speaker 3
You got to pay your people, then.

Speaker 3
You got to pay the expenses and then you got to pay the capital. And then the rest of it goes out to the people that borrow money here and it fluctuates how much we have every year to give back. The board we have is a nine-member board and seven of them are elected, and two are appointed.

Speaker 3
The board's goal is to give back all that we can withstand and I don't see them ever changing that philosophy. So that's what we do every year.

Speaker 3
And we're proud to do it.

Speaker 3
It's truly one of the places where if you borrow 5%, your rate is 5%.

Speaker 3
You will get a check that ultimately if you put that back to the principal balance on your loan will net effect. Historically it's been as low as a percent and a quarter and worst case, three-quarters of a percent.

Speaker 3
But it's an actual check and some people put it on their loan. Some people go on vacation with it.

Speaker 2
I love having that option to give to guys.

Speaker 3
We really don't care what you do with it. Your money.

Speaker 1
Well, I have something I kind of want to jump in here because you said something about kind of taking
 
care of those buckets and things and that's not just because you are sitting here either. I think one thing I've noticed since I've been here just financially, I think smart that this association is, and I've worked at another place where I don't think it was that solid.

Speaker 1
But I really feel like the leadership here and this is for the listeners and our borrowers that I think financially we're a really stable organization and I think a lot of that comes from the top down. But it looks like we make really smart decisions. I think that makes your employees feel a lot more comfortable as well, knowing that they work for a company that's ethical or a lending institution, but also making smart financial decisions and trying to be intelligent and responsible with what they are going to do.

Speaker 2
Getting those folks off the street.

Speaker 2
We want to get everybody we can in here, but I feel like we not necessarily make people jump through more hoops, but we are more selective in who we do and that's a benefit to them and to us.

Speaker 3
I always said when I was a loan officer that you go buy a car and you love the car when you drive it off of the lot, but then you get that buyer's remorse of I've got either 48 or 60 payments, oh gosh. But at River Valley there's no buyer's remorse because we would never put you in a condition to where you had to worry if you could make all of those payments. Sometimes people may say, well, they're a little pickier than others, but we do it to take care of the borrower. We will not let you get out and stress yourself. And sometimes that's hard for prospective customers to hear.

Speaker 3
But I think in the long run some, I've actually had some people come up and say, I'm glad you told me no because that actually ended up being the last thing that I needed to was buy a piece of real estate. River Valley, we try our best to be good humans in the financial world.

Speaker 3
We're not predatory, and sometimes that's popular, sometimes it's not.

Speaker 3
But there's never been a person I've made a loan to that I couldn't look them in the eye and say, hey, you're set, you've got a good loan, and enjoy what you bought.

Speaker 1
Now one thing, you know, throw on there and ask and, you know, to me, I learned this when I was, you know, in the past, this was Jackson Purchase ACA, and then obviously you guys switched to River Valley Ag. So can you just let the listeners know where are the locations, where are the branches? And explain that a little bit, because I get that question too. Hey, what territories do you cover and where can I do a loan, et cetera?

Speaker 3
Jackson Purchase ACA was the entity up until 2012, and it got its name from obviously the Jackson Purchase region of Western Kentucky. And it was roughly a 200,000 - $250,000,000 association with an office in every county west of the lakes. So you had McCracken, you had Ballard, Carlisle, Hickman, Fulton, Graves, Calloway, and Marshall. And we had an opportunity to merge with an association that was headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was actually Chattanooga AgCredit was its old entity. So when you merge those two together, obviously Jackson Purchase did not fit the name of the Chattanooga Association. So we actually had a contest.

Speaker 2
I was wondering where we came up with that.
 
Speaker 3
We did, we had a contest, but we put it out to both associations pre-merger before the merger was approved and had a contest of what would be the name. And one thing both of our territories share is the Tennessee River. So one of the Chattanooga Ag Credit employees actually came up with River Valley AgCredit and they won the contest and it fit perfectly. And that's how River Valley AG Credit became River Valley AgCredit. And then we went through the merger in 2012. I think it was finalized July the first, 2012, and everything else is history after that.

Speaker 1
How many offices are in the Chattanooga area?

Speaker 3
So we've got one in Cleveland, Athens, Loudon, Pikeville, and Dayton.

Speaker 1 Gotcha.

Speaker 2
So we just got through all of our history as far as River Valley, the AgCredit systems are concerned. I kind of want to touch base on Kyle himself. Just kind of your background where we are today as far as getting you here in the headsheds being the CEO.

Speaker 3
Luck, Good timing. So I started in

Speaker 2 Good looks.

Speaker 3 Oh, definitely.

Speaker 1
Okay. Okay. All right. As the other host, I'm going to just move this conversation along.

Speaker 3
I started in 2006 and I knew nothing about lending money, nothing. And the CEO at the time, he knew I knew nothing about lending money. And in the interview process, he said we will teach you how to lend money. So I started as a loan officer trainee in Kevl, Kentucky in 2006 and a unique aspect to at the time Jackson Purchase ACA, but it really is. a Farm Credit issue. There was a bunch of people hired in the late seventies and eighties and they were nearing retirement from the 2008 to about 2014 range. You take one key position and it would move several people just up the work chart. So in 2008 our CEO retired and they actually took my Branch Manager and made him a part of the credit department and I became the Branch Manager at Kevil. That was an awesome job. You got to deal with the big farmers and you got to learn how to manage a branch. I think that was critical to my career because back then you got association financials but you had branch financials and those branch financials were ultimately just mini association financials. So I learned how to manage net income, I got to manage expenses, I got to manage spreads of my branch, hire the people. That taught me a lot. I didn't know it was teaching me a lot, but it taught me a lot. And one thing, I never really said no to any project anybody ever gave me. So we restructured our association in 2011 and went kind of away from a branch structure and more of a regional structure.

Speaker 3
Frankly, I had no idea that I was even capable of doing it. But I did get the job of a regional lending manager and I managed the river counties and along came merger and there were some bad assets that needed managing in the old Chattanooga Association. And the CEO at the time, he came in my office and said I'd like for you to go down there and work those out for me until we can get somebody hired. And I kind of joke about this. The only question I asked was who's going to book my hotel? Do I need to book my hotel or does somebody else do it? And that was preparing me for this role. I didn't know it and I say this to a lot of young people, you never know when you're being challenged. So sometimes you got to take a risk and just say yes and it'll work out for you in the long run. So I go down there and I learn enough about managing bad assets to be dangerous. We worked out through some, we got somebody hired, came back and a Chief Credit Officer position opened up and I got promoted into that.

Speaker 3
I was really getting some momentum in being the Chief Credit Officer. So I would actually bounce back from Kentucky to Tennessee regularly and spend time in both regions going over the portfolio, making sure that all the loan officers were sticking within policy and risk was being managed. And I could report that up through our senior leadership team. And then, lo and behold, that CEO announced his 18 he gave 18 months notice for retirement, and the board selected me soon after and gave me roughly 16 months to shadow him and learn how to be a CEO. That was invaluable because I got to be exposed to things while still having a safety net, basically somebody else to blame it on, right. And I could make some decisions, but I had a safety net of somebody to fall back on. And then January 1 of 16, it was all me. So it's been that way ever since.

Speaker 2
It's interesting, that story, because you talked about you tell young people, you never know when you're being challenged. It's such a valuable thing to say because you just never know where life is going to take you and how you're going to end up where you are. You said something in there, you said when you got hired here, you didn't know anything about lending. When I got hired here, I knew everything about lending. I didn't know anything about ag. And I remember in my interview process, Sheri Kellett and Jessica Johnson both, they're like, we want you here. And I said, you know, I went to Tilghman. I'm a city kid, and like, we will teach you the ag side, you know how to talk to people, you know how to do this, whatever. It's like, we will teach you and you will learn it. And they took a chance on me. And I've always been appreciative of and, uh but you saying that it was funny, it was just flipped the other way. You knew everything about ag, I knew everything about lending and lending money.

Speaker 3
I actually remember the book they gave me to learn about what a mortgage and what a deed was was a coloring book.

Speaker 1
Were they just worried about you?

Speaker 3
That I don't know.

Speaker 1 Could you read?

Speaker 3
But I read manuals.

Speaker 1
Did you color in?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 2
Were you more abstract?
 
Speaker 3
But it was extremely elementary. But that was what I needed. I'm telling you, I didn't know anything. I knew how to read, and I read like I read and read and read for several months of getting here. And I've actually still got the manuals that I read. Now, granted, everything has changed in them.

Speaker 2
But the bones are good.

Speaker 3
Yeah, I read a lot.

Speaker 2
So just kind of going off of what you're talking about as far as your day to day with being a CEO and president here at River Valley, kind of like, what are your day to day operations you have here? What are some things that the perks that you like being in the head chair, going out and seeing folks? What do you like to do? What are your events that you always look forward to during the year?

Speaker 1
Mr. CEO, what's it like being the big dog of River Valley AgCredit, that's what we want to know.

Speaker 3
My favorite events are actually our annual meetings, the ones that we have in November, because I get to see the most members in one room at a time. Actually, I love going out and doing farm visits. And if you look at my calendar, you will see there is not a day in July that I can get out and do a farm visit. And it's been stacking up like that for the last several months. So being CEO is like, well, he can go out and do what he wants to go do the farm visits whenever and somebody will take him. But in reality, I don't have time. I'm missing a meeting now doing this podcast. There's always a meeting.
We're going through a lot of system changes. Frankly, I don't know anything about the technical side of the system changes. I just know that I'm the guy pointing people in the directions to make the changes and that's my role in that and making sure that we as an association meet our benchmarks on those system changes. But my favorite meeting is obviously those annual meetings. I mean, I love them and then I love to get up there and talk about the successes of the year to the membership.

Speaker 3
And I know the membership is just there to win the door prize. I don't blame them. But I have a captive audience and I'm going to talk about how good River Valley and its staff did for at least 15 or 20 minutes. So those are my favorite, my day to day. There is not a single day where I do the same thing. Part of the fun of being CEO is you don't know what the day is going to bring you.

Speaker 3
I had a college student ask me one time, what's the hardest part of your day? The hardest part of my day is opening the door to get into this office. And I say that because anything can happen once you step foot in the building. We could go from one of our largest loans or one of our most complicated loans starts showing signs of stress, we could have an employee resign. We could have a flood in the building.

Speaker 1
That's what I was going to say. You could have pipe bursts. That's no big deal.

Speaker 3
You just don't know what's going to hit you. And as the CEO, you've got to be able one to take the chaos and provide a level of calming people down. And you got to be good at it. Because you take an employee that's, for example, let's say they have never experienced a flood. Well, what's the first thing you do? You turn the water off. And for an employee that's never experienced a flood, they're looking for somebody to go to for advice.

Speaker 2
Their first system we call Kyle.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3
And you take a loan that's going bad. Well, I've been in enough court or courtrooms and what's the first thing you do when a loan goes bad. Well, you contact the borrower and you try to work out a way so you can structure them to get back to being on track. But you also got to work on protecting the association, so you got to view the collateral. And I like that. I like that.

Speaker 3
But you just never know what your day is going to consist of. And there's no way for me to describe a typical day in the life of the CEO. I just got back in town and I've spent the last hour getting an update on what's happened while I've been gone. And most of it's been around flooding because I missed the flooding. Bardwell was inches away from having to...

Speaker 2
Oh, it was a lazy river.

Speaker 3
I was getting fed all that real-time from our staff so I'm never out of the loop, but I'm the guy that makes the call on whether or not to evacuate or not. Those are my day-to-day issues. When I get off here, I'm going to go. I'm working on a financial project for our board meeting in August on strategic planning, and I will actually dive into numbers for the rest of the day.

Speaker 1
I've learned a lot.

Speaker 3
But the joke sometimes, like our code, I read it backward sometimes when we put the code in the door. So you can say that the hardest part of my day is opening the door from the professional side, but also just getting in the door, just actually.

Speaker 1
Getting in the know. We know you have a very supportive E-team. There are a lot of people on your E- team that keep you in line. I know Jessica. Between Jessica and Shea. They keep you in line.

Speaker 1
Shea tells you where to go and how to get there.

Speaker 1
Any PR event she says, Kyle this is where you got to be so I know this.

Speaker 3
Yeah, I'm everybody's driver, but man, this has been great.

Speaker 1
Yeah. When I got asked to do this, Kyle, one of the first things I thought was with the very novice ag background I had, we're going to be able to interview some interesting and influential people but at the same time, I'm going to learn a lot myself by just doing this podcast. And so I was excited about that. I think it's going to be not only influential for the listeners but there's going to be things I'm going to be learning while we're doing this podcast, which may be great for a lot of listeners because I want to be asking novice questions to some guests that may help some other people fill in some blanks.

So, folks, I think that'll be really good and exciting.

Speaker 2
Well, Kyle, we just want to say thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 3
It's over. I have so much more to say.

Speaker 2
We'll just rep you back in the next time around. I think it's what they call a teaser. So we'll just have you come back in next time for sure.

Speaker 3
Well, I'm right up the hall.

Speaker 1 You are?

Speaker 3
I am, yeah. Nobody ever comes up that hall.

Speaker 1
No, we're scared we avoid that section.

Speaker 3
It's actually wintertime. Like, you cross a certain section and it gets so cold you can't stand it up.

Speaker 1 We avoid.

Speaker 2
I try to tread lightly through there.

Speaker 1
There are two offices that we avoid, the CEO's office and the head HR person.

Speaker 2
Luckily, they're both down the same, so.

Speaker 1
Anytime I get any message from Jessica, always just automatically assume it's bad. I just saw it's kind of like...

Speaker 2
Beauty and the Beast that part of the wing. You just didn't go down.

Speaker 3
But it's cold up there right now.

Speaker 1
Well, Kyle, we really appreciate you coming in today and kind of just talking about what it's like being the CEO of River Valley Ag and kind of what we stand for and what we're about. I think it's really beneficial to our listeners, to our borrowers, and yeah, and to us too. I mean, I've learned a lot today about you personally that I didn't know about the association, that although I knew a lot about it we didn't know. We just really appreciate you having on. I know you're busy and taking time out of your schedule, so it was really enjoyable doing it.

Speaker 1
So continue to stay tuned Back to Your Roots as we're going to have more I think we've got a ton of guests lined up that I think are going to be just great, awesome guests to interview and we're looking
 
forward to it and looking forward to getting some good viewership and listenership for this podcast.

Speaker 2
Tune in with us next week where our guest will be the Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture, Mr. Ryan Corles. Thanks again for listening and we look forward to seeing you next time on Back To Your Roots.

Speaker 1
Thanks for tuning in to Back to Your Roots, where we dish the dirt on all things AG. Be sure to never miss an episode by following and subscribing while there. Leave us a review about what you want to hear next. Stay in the know between episodes by following us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok. For more resources, go to our website at rivervalleyadcredit.com.