Adam Torres and Allyson Tjoelker discuss Texas FFA.
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Show Notes:
Listen to coverage from the 96th Texas FFA State Convention in Houston, Texas. In this episode, Adam Torres and Allyson Tjoelker, Senior Vice President-Mission and YBS Lending, Capital Farm Credit, explore her experience attending the state convention.
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About YBS Lending, Capital Farm Credit
Capital Farm Credit is the largest rural lending cooperative in Texas, providing credit and other related services to farmers, ranchers, rural homeowners, and agribusinesses.They are a proud member of the nationwide Farm Credit System which provides financing to meet the needs of rural America. As one of the largest Farm Credit Associations in the United States, Capital Farm Credit has over $11 billion in total assets and employs over 600 team members. We serve 192 counties in Texas with nearly 70 credit offices.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today I am in Houston, Texas at the Texas FFA Convention, and let me tell you, this is my third year coming. Absolutely love it. And today my guest is Allison Teoker. First off, Allison, welcome to the show. Thank you.
Excited to be here. All right. So a lot going on this year in convention. First off, how many years have you been coming to convention? First time or many times? What? What’s your story? So actually this is our first time to attend convention as a corporate sponsor, so yeah I am so excited about this because one of my goals in covering the convention is I want all these corporate sponsors to come.
People need to know why they should be in the Texas FFA convention, why they should support. And I guess, first off, even going before that, did you know about Texas FFA before sponsoring or not? I didn’t, just so you know. I didn’t know until I heard Aaron’s like, you just gotta come, you gotta come. You’ll see, you’ll believe it.
There you go. What was your story? How did you get introduced? Yeah, so I have been really familiar with Texas FFA for years, just in previous work experiences, and Youth leadership opportunities. And then in my current role, I am the senior vice president for our mission and our YBS lending. YBS stands for young, beginning and small, but really our mission is to promote the next generation of agriculture.
So I felt like it was just a really natural partnership for us at Capital Farm Credit to come alongside and. Support this great organization. We believe in the youth of agriculture. We believe leadership opportunities that this provides and the impact that we can have. So, yeah. So what is one of the reasons why you decided to come on board as a corporate sponsor, like a lot of different organizations you could support, a lot of different things you can do, but what was the only reasons that this one was special?
You know, I think for us, just understanding the magnitude of the reach of Texas FFA across Texas. I mean, the numbers are just incredible and they keep growing and you still have your traditional ag families, but we’re also seeing you see an increase in FFA with urban kiddos and kiddos that don’t have a background in ag.
So I think we want to be present. This is a cool thing and we want to be a part of it. So what’s been one of your favorite moments so far? And I like to ask this question by the way, because it’s like, we’ll look back and I already know, like I’m three years in and I swear it feels like my first convention.
I’m like, so you’re going to look back at this and three years, five years, 10 years. And I want you to remember this first one. What’s one been so far, one of your favorite moments. So far, I think I had the opportunity to introduce Dale Alexander. So he’s amazing. And I got to know him just for about 10 minutes and.
He is a passionate speaker, he’s a motivator and he talks about a super important topic, which is financial literacy. So hearing that and understanding, we have a passion for that as well. Of course, we’re in the finance industry, a capital firm credit, but just getting to know him and seeing the impact that he has when he speaks with these youth is pretty impressive.
Yeah. I had Dale in the show too. We got an episode coming. I’m going to send that one to you. You could see it. It was, it was so much fun having him on and I have this ridiculous, not, I shouldn’t say ridiculous, but it is. So let me tell you the difference between and for any content creators out there, let me listen in even closer.
So I see this palette of books going, and I realized that that’s his pallet of like, he’s giving away 17, 000 books or something like that. And I was like, Oh, so I bring out my phone just cause that’s what I do. So content creators. Bring out my phone and I start like videoing a palette. I don’t know where it’s going.
And like, I’m following it and I have all these members in the blue jackets following me and they’re like, what are you doing? And I’m like, this is a story. I’m literally teaching them how to do media. And I’m like, this is a story. And then it just so happens that it happens to be going right there to his booth.
It’s the first time he even seen the book. With the new packaging. He said it’s a new cover, new everything. The first time he’s seen it. So I have all of that on camera. I got the first book, of course, and I’m just like, let’s do it. And now we have this whole story and whatever that, that came from me following a palette of, I don’t know what the guys like.
Well, I could, yeah, they made it to all the kinos today. He gave them out and I know I’ve had that. Feeling they’re going to read them. So I love that story. And this is just a little bit for you to know is as a newer sponsor is they will remember. And I’m so happy that obviously you already made your decision before I’m saying this, but I’ll give you one of my examples as a sponsor where I’m just like blown away.
Three years ago, we gave away coasters that said mission matters. They were very well designed. They look cool. They had this cool design on there of like a California like mountains and like there’s a great design. Not to me. I didn’t design it. And. But Jennifer, thank you back at the office. But they were amazing.
I can’t, you, you’re not even gonna believe this years later, like three years later, this just happened at this convention. Multiple people came up and they’re like, Oh, we still have your coaster. Like I still have your coaster. These are independent, like just randomly coming up. We still have your kosher.
Oh, mine’s at my nightstand or mine’s over here. Got mine in my garage, like three different stories. For a coaster. They want to remember. They wanted that. Yeah. So when you think about, like, brands, and if you want somebody to remember a brand, if you want somebody to remember your work, if you want somebody to like, you need to be here.
Like, this is our future. These are our future decision makers. These are our future movers and that are going to be running this place. That’s what I say. I couldn’t agree more. And we had caps and we ran out. So we’re bringing some more tomorrow. But yes, I think you, you said it exactly right. This is our future.
These youth are, they care enough to be here in the summer and not just be here. They’re totally invested in what they’re doing. They’re competing. They’re growing. They’re Have you gotten some handshakes? I got a lot of handshakes. And isn’t it different? It is so different. Yes. I don’t know if I should say this right or wrong or I’m not saying politically right, but you see this little cutie young girl or young man and they’re like over here like looking at you and I, shaking your hand and you’re like, Whoa, I like personally, I’ve shaken some men’s hands that don’t have, I’m like, Whoa, okay.
But the pride, like the feeling. There is, and so much confidence. Yeah, it does feel genuine and it’s pretty impressive to see that. Definitely amazing. Well, well, Alison, I just want to say thank you for taking some time out of your schedule. I know there’s a lot going on, but appreciate you making some, some time for us today.
I want you to close this. I want you to look at the camera and tell everyone how they can learn more about transcripting. Tech about capital farm credit. Sure. Absolutely. Well, if you’d like to learn more about capital farm credit and the resources that we have to offer both farmers, ranchers, agribusiness owners, you can visit our website, capitalfarmcredit.
com. Amazing. Thank you. And for everybody watching or listening, we’ll put the links to that in the show notes, so you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet. Hit that subscribe or follow button.
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