Farm Credit Bank of Texas Senior Vice President and Chief Credit Officer Kurt Thomas will retire from the cooperatively owned wholesale funding bank effective Dec. 31, after 36 years of Farm Credit service.
Succeeding Thomas as chief credit officer is John Sloan, another Farm Credit veteran, who is currently vice president and unit manager of the bank’s association direct lending unit (ADLU). Mel Koller, FCBT vice president and ADLU relationship manager, will succeed Sloan.
As chief credit officer since 2010, Thomas was responsible for the $22.3 billion bank’s credit division, which includes capital markets, association direct lending, credit operations and risk management.
Thomas began his Farm Credit career in 1981 in fiscal operations at the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank of Houston and moved through the ranks of credit administration and production lending operations with the Farm Credit Bank of Texas and gained field experience as interim chief credit officer of El Campo Production Credit Association (PCA) and manager of Coleman PCA.
He was promoted to FCBT regional vice president and then vice president of credit and operations, before being named unit manager of the newly created ADLU in 2003, and chief credit officer in 2010.
Sloan takes over as chief credit officer with nearly 30 years of credit experience. He joined Farm Credit Bank of Texas in 2010 as a vice president and relationship manager, and served for a period in 2012 as acting chief executive officer of Ag New Mexico FCS, ACA.
He was promoted to vice president and ADLU unit manager in 2013. Before joining the bank, Sloan had 20 years of Farm Credit experience, including eight years as vice president of agribusiness lending at Farm Credit Services Southwest in Arizona. He also has worked for a commercial bank and was an association loan officer in the Texas Farm Credit District.
Sloan earned a business administration degree from New Mexico State University and an MBA from Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. He is a graduate of Western States School of Banking at the University of New Mexico.
Koller brings 16 years of credit experience to his new role as vice president and ADLU unit manager. He joined the bank in 2009 as a senior credit officer, and in 2012 was promoted to vice president and relationship manager in the ADLU.
Previously, he spent six years as an agricultural production lender, including two years with Fresno Madera Farm Credit in California. He also worked for four years in agribusiness lending with Bank of the West in Arizona.
Koller earned his bachelor’s degree in agribusiness finance from California Polytechnic State University and his master’s degree in agribusiness management from Arizona State University. He also is a graduate of the LSU Graduate School of Banking in Baton Rouge, La.
Farm Credit Bank of Texas provides funding and services to 14 rural financing cooperatives in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas, and to other financing institutions that lend to farmers, ranchers and other rural borrowers.
It also participates with other lenders in loans to agribusinesses and companies that provide essential services and infrastructure in rural communities. It is part of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of cooperatives established in 1916.
