If Colter Brown (Northern Ag Network, Billings, MT) had a dollar for every time he’s heard that, he said, “I wouldn’t have to work at all.” Even though he’s been around farm broadcasting his whole life, if you would have asked him five years ago if he was going to be on the Northern Ag Network, his answer would’ve been, “Not a chance.” He explained, “I think my dad would tell you that he never intended on being in farm broadcasting for his entire career. Dad always planned on going back to the ranch, but the farm economy, life and the Lord intervened. Another thing he probably never intended was becoming the voice for the entire ag industry in Montana, Wyoming and the Western Dakotas, but he sure did. You’d be hard pressed to go to any farming community in the region and find someone who didn’t know Taylor Brown. Heck, even though the Montana Chevy Dealers haven’t run the ads in well over a decade, everyone still remembers, ‘Tell ‘em Taylor sent ya!’” When Colter graduated college from Montana State University with a degree an ag economics, he was unsure where he was going to end up, but he started working with Northwest Farm Credit as a loan officer because he knew he wanted to be involved in agriculture. “Shortly after I started, the cattle industry took its biggest run in history, and there wasn’t a bad loan to be made. But it didn’t take long for prices to come back to earth and for reality to set in. I had many a tough conversation with customers at the kitchen table as prices that were once at all-time peaks, took all-time drops. Thankfully, we’re all still here and I still get to help those same producers, just in a little different capacity,” Colter said. “Eventually I realized that I wasn’t going to be a banker for the rest of my life and Dad said, ‘maybe we should talk.’” After many, many discussions with his parents about what it would be like if he did work at the network, Colter could start to see that maybe there was a future for him in the family business. “Farm broadcasting is a little different than banking. I’d have to say considerably more fun, nearly always free beer anywhere we go. I still have a lot to learn and, thank goodness, we have a great team here to help with that. I was able to see firsthand shortly after I started exactly how we can help farmers and ranchers. Montana was in one of the worst droughts in history when one of the worst fire seasons in history started. We were able to help direct assistance where it was needed and provide just a little bit of hope for those who came close to losing everything,” Colter said. “I don’t know if there are many jobs as rewarding as this one. I feel truly blessed to be a part of such a great industry and feel fortunate to have the trust of producers to deliver the information they need,” he concluded.
