A discussion with NBT Bank’s new manager for agribusiness lending

Jennifer Conard is now the regional agricultural-banking manager at NBT Bank, working at the office in Norwich, where the bank is headquartered.

NBT Bank serves 600 agribusiness customers in Central New York, “the majority of whom are tied to dairy farming,” the bank said in a fact sheet provided to CNYBJ. 

“Those would be our agricultural-borrowing customers,” Conard adds. She spoke with CNYBJ in a telephone interview on March 1.

NBT Bank has been serving agribusinesses since it was founded more than 160 years ago.

Conard assumed leadership of NBT’s agricultural-lending group following the retirement of long-time manager Ed Coates last summer. 

“I returned to this group,” says Conard. She had earlier worked with NBT’s agricultural-lending group between 2003 and 2014.

Prior to assuming her new role on July 1, 2018, she had been an underwriter for the bank in its business-loan area, examining both agriculture and commercial-loan requests.

“The bank gave us a very nice six-month window to work with our retiring manager, Ed Coates,” says Conard.

Conard has worked for NBT Bank since it acquired Central National Bank in Canajoharie in Montgomery County in 2001. She had joined Central National as a credit analyst in 1999. 

Coates had worked for NBT Bank for 29 years, according to Conard. “He was certainly a pillar of the Norwich community and NBT Bank as a whole, representing the [agricultural] banking specialty.”

Coates had served as the regional agricultural-banking manager for the entirety of his time at NBT Bank, says Florence Doller, senior VP and director of corporate communications at NBT Bank, who also spoke during the March 1 interview. Altogether, Coates had worked for more than 35 years in the financial-services industry.

Along with Conard, four people work on agribusiness lending at NBT Bank. 

“[Our] focus is exclusively on [agricultural] banking,” Conard said when asked if her group worked in other areas of business banking.

Customers apply to NBT for agricultural mortgages, to purchase or expand properties or to complete construction projects, to pursue agricultural equipment and livestock, and for working capital. 

NBT Bank uses loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency “to help get the deal written for the customer,” says Conard. It’s similar to how the U.S. Small Business Administration provides guarantees for small-business loans, she adds.