ISPFMRA elects new leadership

EAST PEORIA, Ill. — New Illinois Society of Professional Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers officers were installed at the group’s annual conference Feb. 6.

Members of the leadership team are President Michael Lauher, First Mid Ag Services, Mattoon; Vice President Nick Westgerdes, Farmers National Company, Rochelle; Secretary/Treasurer Gary Schnitkey, University of Illinois, Champaign; Academic Vice President Maria Boerngen, Illinois State University, Normal; President-elect Laura Enger, Farm Credit Illinois, Mahomet; and Immediate Past President Liz Strom, Murray Wise Associates, Champaign.

Taking Charge

“I’m honored and privileged to be able to serve in this position, and I look forward to serving the membership going forward,” the new president said.

Lauher’s career spans over three decades and his membership in ISPFMRA goes back even further to his time as a student at ISU in the early 1990s.

A college course changed the trajectory of Lauher’s plans and led to his long career in farm management.

He grew up on an east-central Illinois farm where his family raises hogs, cattle, corn and soybeans.

“I never really thought that I would be a farmer. We struggled. My dad was a tenant farmer on 300 acres. The 1980s came. We farmed for a widow and when her boys got old enough they wanted to farm, so we lost the farm my senior year of high school. I lacked a little direction,” he said.

Career Course

Lauher attended Eastern Illinois University for two years and then joined the Air Force, serving for four years.

“While I was in the Air Force, I kind of figured out what I wanted to do, which was go was go back to school and get a business degree,” he said.

Lauher enrolled at ISU and worked toward his degree.

“I thought I’d get an ag minor because of my farming background. I took a farm management class and realized that’s what I wanted to do,” he said.

Lauher switched his major from business to agribusiness and graduated in 1994.

His career started in 1993 during his last semester at ISU when he joined the predecessor to First Mid Ag Services managing farms, providing rural appraisals and brokering farmland from the Decatur office.

Lauher continued at that location while the company changed ownership a couple of times until it became Soy Capital Bank and Trust.

In 2008, he transferred to John Hancock Life Insurance Company in Savoy and worked there until 2019 where he managed farms for that firm in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

Lauher was eventually promoted to senior vice president of row crops and eastern operations overseeing the performance of farmland assets valued at over $1 billion through the continental United States.

He also consulted on ag investment opportunities in Brazil and row crop sustainability in the development of Leading Harvest.

Back Home

“We parted ways in 2019 and I did a little work on my own and did a little work for another company and ended up with First Mid Ag Services back in my original role. First Mid Ag Services purchased Soy Capital. There was a lot of people there that I had worked with before and I felt like I’d come home,” Lauher said.

“I’m working out of the First Mid Ag Services Mattoon office which is near where I grew up, so it really feels like I went back home.

“I’m back doing things that I enjoy doing. I picked up an appraisal license and started working on appraisals which was a nice twist to this chapter in my career.”

He is an accredited farm manager through the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers and an accredited land consultant through the Realtors Land Institute.

He serves on the board of directors for the Illinois Chapter of Realtors Land Institute, and The Land Connection, a nonprofit organization.

As a member since the early 1990s, Lauher has seen countless advantages and opportunities for ISPFMRA members.

“The biggest benefit is the educational opportunities to keep up on current issues,” he said.

“Another benefit is networking with other professionals, hearing how they’re doing, what they’re doing in their part of the state and comparing that to what you’re doing. You’re always learning from people who do the same thing that you do.

“Another benefit we’re going to focus on a little bit more is trying to have more of a voice in Springfield and Washington, D.C., with policy development and more of a forum for what we’re trying to communicate for our landowners.”