Turner Veterinary Service
Turner, Maine

This story is about two veterinarians who merged their separate practices and created a new veterinary clinic in Turner, Maine. Their objective was to provide a level of service that the community needed, including 24-hour emergency care.

The two vets are Rebecca (“Becky”) Myers, DVM, a graduate of the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, and Cady Barns, DVM, a graduate of the veterinary school at Tufts University. Their practice addresses the medical needs of farm animals (dairy and beef cattle, sheep, goats, pigs).

Once the partners identified the community’s need for a full-service prac-tice, they set out to find an appropriate site. The perfect location turned out to be a former dairy barn on a main road in Turner — an active agricultural community in western Maine.

The Farm Credit connection

Development of the new facility required the purchase and renovation of the property, and for this they needed money. Hence, their connection to Farm Credit. For this, they turned to loan officer Van Perry, of Farm Credit of Maine’s Auburn office. Perry, who raises goats, pigs and calves, just happened to be a client of Becky, so it was fairly easy to establish a relationship.

“We sat down with Van to get infor-mal feedback on our plans,” says Becky. “He was so supportive of our ideas from the beginning, that we didn’t even shop around for other lenders.”

Van says, “Farm Credit saw the doctors’ long-term potential for business success, based on the quality and broad range of their veterinary skills. The clinic clearly fulfills an important need for the local dairy farmers and other farmers in this area, so we determined that we were supporting agriculture by helping the clinic.”

Farm Credit of Maine provided a guaranteed loan backed by the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME). The loan helped the two partners create a state-of-the- art base of operation for their veteri-nary practices, which included an on-site hospital facility. The loan covered building renovations and start-up costs (inventory and equipment) for the new facility.

Creative loan package

“Van was very creative and flexible in crafting the loan package,” said Becky. “He set up a construction loan, with a six-month period featuring interest-only payments. He also kept payments low during our start-up years and arranged for only one loan closing, which saved a lot on closing costs.”

The construction of the new clinic is a story in itself. The former owners of the barn are clients of the practice and were excited about their old dairy barn being turned into a veterinary hospital. (In fact, Van is also the former owners’ loan officer, serving both their dairy farm and timber businesses.)

“We liked the flavor of the old building,” said Becky, “with its prime location plus its general character, including a 100-year-old oak tree on the front lawn. It was a beautiful building that was worth saving, so we decided to maintain the look of a dairy barn on the outside, while building a state-of-the-art clinic inside.”

Becky and Cady essentially designed the clinic themselves, and their plans included a waiting room, office area, examination rooms, pharmacy, laboratory, surgical suite, isolation area and a pen for small ruminates.

“Our business goal is to provide the best service possible to patients and clients,” said Becky. “We wanted to pro-vide 24-hour a day emergency service. For this reason, we recently hired Dr. Catherine Sanders, a skilled farm animal veterinarian. This also allows us to have some occasional time off.”

Certainly, no one will begrudge Becky and Cady the time off, for they worked hard to achieve their dream of creating a clinic that meets the needs of their agricultural community. Of course, when they selected Farm Credit, they borrowed wisely, too.
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Green Meadow Lumber

Steve Oleksak is the fourth generation of his family to make a living in the timber business, but his apparent entrepreneurial skills set him apart from his forebears. That's because he has grown the family's business from a two-man enterprise in his father's day to a $4-million operation today, with 44 employees, two sawmills and a pallet mill.

Green Meadow Lumber occupies a 55-acre site. The main building mills logs for high-grade lumber, but Steve also operates a scragg mill, which processes small, low quality logs into pallet lumber, cants and log cabin stock. At their peak, the main mill runs two shifts and turns out 40,000 board feet daily and the scragg mill produces up to 50,000 board feet daily. Steve also runs the pallet mill on the main site.

Steve also owns forestland, which is managed to provide a supply of logs for the business. Otherwise, he buys logs for his mills from forest landowners, foresters and loggers.

"I noticed that no one in the industry was processing small logs efficiently. Since sawing time is increased to process smaller logs, most milling operations go for bigger logs to maximize yield and efficiency. So I chose to aggressively pursue low-grade timber — the junk that no one else wants."

Someone obviously wants the end product, because Green Meadow now turns out between 8-to-10 million board feet of lumber annually and ships up to 4,000 pallets per week to markets as far away as 100 miles.

Loans and consulting

Green Meadow relies upon Farm Credit for periodic loans and leases and general business consulting services.

Steve said. "Farm Credit saw the potential in our operation when I was younger and the business was very small. They are excellent to deal with, always pay attention to what's going on and work very closely with me to help ensure that the business succeeds."


Todd Brown Ditch and Tile

A ditch-and-tile operation might seem like an unusual enterprise to be highlighted in an ag business publication, but Todd Brown is a part-time cash-crop farmer. And his ditch-and-tile business serves other farmers.

Todd and his son, Rodney, manage about 120 acres of tillable land on which they plant and harvest corn, hay, wheat and spring barley. They also install drainage systems for dairy farms, orchards and cash-crop farms.

The typical installation goes something like this: the Browns use a backhoe or a trencher to dig open trenches 2- to 6-feet deep and install 4- to 12-inch tubing. The Browns use this open trench system to tie old lime or stone ditches into the new tile lines. Then once they create an unobstructed outlet to an open ditch or other suitable area, their system should last 100 years — or longer — and allow safe disposal of runoff or unwanted groundwater.

"We use scientific evidence to determine where the tiles should be laid," said Todd. "In some hilly fields, it is not as simple as running a line to the wet spot. Sometimes you have to get above the wet spot to cut the water off before it gets there. For example, in an alfalfa field, we look for spots where the crop is dying, which may mean there is excess water under that area."

Todd says that tiling is simply adapting modern technology to fit nature. "For example, alfalfa seedlings will stay in a field longer if they're not sitting in water. Apple growers — who can spend as much as $10,000 to plant an acre of trees — come out way ahead by investing in the tiling of a wet field instead of losing all or part of that acre because of trees with wet feet."

Line of credit

Todd uses Farm Credit for a line of credit that allows his business to access cash on an as-needed basis. He favors Farm Credit because of the organization's track record for customer service.

"We got tired of waiting for a commercial bank to let us know if we qualified for a loan," Todd said. "Now we have a line of credit with Farm Credit and it's fantastic. If we see something at an auction at a reasonable price, we can comfortably buy it on the spot because we know we have money in our account." Todd added, "I also leased a piece of equipment through Farm Credit. Farm Credit offered to set up a seven-month payment schedule because our cash flow is slow in the wintertime when we don't usually have much tiling business. We really appreciated this flexibility."

So there you have it: Two diverse — and highly successful — enterprises. And, in case you're wondering, there is a connection between business success and the quality of your lender, even when your business is somewhat out of the mainstream of U.S. agriculture.

Contact us at info@farmcreditmaine.com for more information about our financing options.

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