Name: Miller, Mark
Title: CEO & President, Texas Farm Credit
Texas A&M Class: 1987
Inducted: 2016
Mark Miller grew up on a farm and ranch in Bishop, Texas, producing cotton, grain sorghum, cattle, hogs, and poultry. It is during those formative years that Mark’s passion for the agricultural industry was ignited. Currently CEO of Texas Farm Credit, Mark Miller has spent his career in the Farm Credit System serving an agricultural community that he has been a part of since his childhood days.
Upon graduating from Bishop High School in 1983, Mark began his college career at Howard Payne before transferring first to Tarleton, next to Texas A&I and finally to Texas A&M University in 1985 as a sophomore where he graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics. During his time as a student at A&M, Mark owned and operated a harvesting operation each summer and also worked as a teaching and research assistant in the department. Since his time at A&M, Mark has continued his personal growth through education, having graduated from the Texas Agriculture Lifetime Leadership Program in 2002. In addition, Mark continues to support educational activities by serving in leadership roles as a member of the Texas A&M College of Agriculture Development Council, the treasurer of the Nueces County Texas AgriLife Extension Crops Committee, and as an advisory member of the South Texas Cotton and Grain Association. Mark also is actively involved in supporting the development of students through the AGEC 424 and 425 classes.
Mark began his career with Texas Farm Credit, previously known as Texas Ag Finance, in 1989 as a loan officer in Robstown, Texas. Texas Farm Credit is an agricultural-lending cooperative that has been a part of the Farm Credit System since 1933. To date, Mark’s twenty-six year career with Texas Farm Credit has allowed him to experience and understand every facet of the organization. He first served as Loan Officer until March 1989, Assistant Vice President until January 1992, Vice President & Branch Manager / Systems Administrator until July 1993, Vice President of Market Research until August 1998, Vice President of Systems Administration until January 2001, Chief Operating Officer until January 2002, Chief Credit Officer until January 2004, Chief Credit Officer and Executive Vice President until December 2012, and is presently Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President.
Over the course of his career, Mark has held leadership positions in a variety of capacities across the Farm Credit System. As a member of the Farm Credit System’s President’s Planning Committee on the Subcommittee for Risk Management, Mark worked to help design and implement the 14-point Risk Rating System currently being utilized nationwide by the Farm Credit System. He presently serves as a member of the System’s President’s Planning Committee on the Subcommittee for Finance, where he is working with the Farm Credit Administration’s leadership on designing new capital standards for the Farm Credit System which will comply with the BASEL III finance industry reform measures. Mark also recently accepted a seat on the Farm Credit System’s “Group of 30” CEOs.
Mark has been involved in several successful mergers during his time with Texas Farm Credit, the most recent of which occurred during his first year as CEO of the organization. This most recent merger, which occurred in January of 2014, was the largest in the history of the organization, resulting in an organization that now manages more than a billion dollars in loan volume while maintaining credit quality and return on members’ equity at levels that consistently rank at the top of comparisons to other organizations across the Farm Credit System.
While Mark is extremely passionate about his career, and his affiliation with Texas A&M and the Department of Agricultural Economics, his true love and dedication are to his family. Mark and his wife Jeannie have been married for 25 years, and they are parents to their 13-year old son Grant. They are both active members of the First Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas, where Mark is a deacon and currently serves as Chairman on the church’s Fiscal Committee.
