The week of October 10th, Rick Russell, President of DFA Financing, gathered loan officers and administrative staff for two days of meetings and learning. Over the course of those two days, staff had continued learning on our analysis software, Salesforce, updates and presentations from other Farm Services and Northeast membership and milk sales staff, meetings with our real estate partner First Financial Bank, a presentation on world and agriculture economic outlook from CoBank, as well as many other things. Additionally, the team enjoyed an evening together at a local restaurant. This was the first time our whole team had been together since before Covid, so there were introductions for some newer team members and lots of discussion among some of our longer-term employees.
 
Rick stated: “It was wonderful to have the whole team together to share ideas, connect with each other as well as others within the cooperative, and think of new ways to help our member farmer-owners obtain the capital necessary to run their operations.”
 
It was an eventful and educational two days. All staff had many key takeaways and action items. We look forward to being able to get the whole team together again in the future now that the pandemic related travel restrictions have been removed.