The American Bankers Association will recognize Kansas banker Leonard Wolfe as the recipient of its Bruning Award at its National Agricultural Bankers Conference in November. The organization is also honoring Robert Craven, an economist at the University of Minnesota, as the recipient of its Blanchfield Award at the Oklahoma City event.
Wolfe — who is president, CEO and board chair of Marysville, Kan.-based United Bank and Trust — will receive the lifetime achievement award for showing leadership and dedication to providing credit and financial guidance to farmers, ranchers and businesses in rural America.
Wolfe has more than 40 years of banking experience. The ABA credits him for helping enact a Kansas law that gave community banks the same tax-exempt status on certain earned interest as farm credit institutions. The bill included a tax exemption for rural housing loans in communities with 2,500 people or less.
“My biggest motivation is to help our communities and our customers,” Wolfe said. “There are many threats to communities in rural America and it sometimes feels like all the cards are stacked against us, but as a community banker we can help change that so our customers and people within our communities compete with the rest of the world.”
Named after John Blanchfield, former ABA senior vice president of its Center for Agricultural and Rural Banking, the Blanchfield Award recognizes the work of a non-banker who significantly contributed to agricultural lending. “I’m surprised, honored and humbled to receive this award,” said Craven, an experienced ag economist at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Farm Financial Management. “Educators that have won this in the past have all been folks I’ve looked up to during my career.”
Craven’s career started when the ABA, University of Minnesota and community banks in the state provided funding and hired him to test computerized credit analysis systems, which eventually became credit management solutions firm FINPACK. He has presented at ABA’s ag conference for more than 20 years.
A soybean and corn farmer, Craven co-founded the national schools for agriculture bankers, which he now co-leads with the South Dakota Bankers Association. He was an instructor for more than 15 years at the Midwest Banking Institute.