Farm Credit Bank of Texas Announces New Chairman, Vice Chairman
For Immediate Release January 11, 2012
AUSTIN, Texas – The Farm Credit Bank of Texas (FCBT) Board of Directors has elected James F. “Jimmy” Dodson of Robstown, Texas, board chairman and Lester Little of Hallettsville, Texas, vice chairman of the $14 billion cooperatively owned bank.
The two South Texas farmers were elected during the board’s annual organizational meeting on Jan. 10.
Dodson was first elected to the FCBT board in 2003 and had served as vice chairman since 2009. He succeeds Ralph W. Cortese of Fort Sumner, N.M., who had chaired the board since 2000. Little has been a member of the board since 2009.
Dodson grows primarily cotton and milo in a family farming operation near Robstown and also operates a seed sales business. He chairs the Tenth District Farm Credit Council and is a past chairman of the Texas AgFinance board. In addition to his Farm Credit leadership activities, he is president of the American Cotton Producers of the National Cotton Council and chairman of the council’s policy committee. He is a former chairman of the Cotton Foundation and a former director of Cotton Incorporated.
Little owns and operates a farming business that is headquartered in Lavaca County, and also offers custom farming services, focusing on land preparation and reclaiming farms. His principal crops are corn, milo, hay and wheat. A past chairman of the Capital Farm Credit Board of Directors, Little serves on the Lavaca Regional Water Planning Group. Previously, he chaired the Hallettsville ISD and was a Lavaca Central Appraisal District board member.
Dodson and Little will serve one-year terms as FCBT chairman and vice chairman, respectively. They recently were re-elected to three-year terms on the bank board, effective Jan. 1.
Headquartered in Austin, Farm Credit Bank of Texas is a wholesale bank that provides funds and services to 17 rural lending cooperatives in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. The 95-year-old bank is part of the nationwide Farm Credit System, the oldest and largest source of rural financing in the United States.