Maude Hereford Named Head of Agricultural Lending

EVERYWHERE (Sept. 29, 2026) — EveryBank, N.A. has named Maude Hereford Head of Agricultural Lending. She joins a portfolio of $50.4 million in farm loans, 1.5% of EveryBank's book:

• $29.4 million secured by farmland
• $21.0 million in production loans, which cover operating lines, equipment and livestock

The slice is small because the largest banks lend almost nothing to farms, and they dominate the average. It is not small everywhere. 82.6% of American banks make ag loans, and the median bank holds $9.3 million of them. 917 banks are agricultural specialists, with farm loans over a quarter of their books.

"The Mean has never seen corn. The Median has opinions about it. I'm here to split the difference, which with corn is roughly a bushel."

— Maude Hereford, Head of Agricultural Lending

"Maude calls it live collateral. It eats every day, whether or not the loan is paying. I'd put the risk between moderate and a drought."

— Perry Sentyle (%), Chief Risk Officer

On the coasts, bankers worry about El Niño and La Niña. In farm country, they worry about el derecho: a line of storms that flattens everything in a straight line for hundreds of miles. The one on Aug. 10, 2020, was the costliest thunderstorm in modern U.S. history. The one on May 12, 2022, took grain bins and machinery across South Dakota and Minnesota. Maude underwrites for both and keeps the insurance certificates in the file.

When a bad year leaves an operating line bigger than one harvest can pay back, Maude can term it out: turn the line into a loan paid over 15 years. The payment fits the cash flow again. The debt is still there.

"What could go wrong, on average."

— Perry Sentyle (%), Chief Risk Officer

Position description

• Reports to: Faith N. People, Vice President of Credit (and, in practice, the weather)
• Location: somewhere in the middle
• Responsibilities:
  • Renew every operating line in spring, before planting, regardless of how the fall went.
  • Tell a farmland loan from a production loan on sight, and explain to the Call Report preparer why it matters.
  • Read a Schedule F faster than the borrower can explain it.
  • Hold past-due ag loans at 1.24% or better, knowing one bad harvest will ignore this goal.
  • Attend at least one county fair per quarter and report back on the pie.
• Qualifications: five years of agricultural credit, or one very long drought. Can tell a Hereford from an Angus (required, non-negotiable, ask her).
• Compensation: exactly average.