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As an accomplished agricultural investment executive, Ray brings deep industry and market insight to help clients build and improve their businesses, achieve their capitalization goals and enhance their operational performance. Throughout Ray’s career, he has led preeminent agricultural and timberland finance organizations within all of North America while also exploring markets in Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.
Ray’s background includes positions such as recruitment, talent management, leadership, property management, investment originations, underwriting, credit and portfolio management.
Ray has a B.S. in Agricultural Business from the University of Tennessee at Martin and an MBA from the University of Arkansas.
As CEO and Sr. Managing Partner of Sower Investment Partners, Jared has over two decades of experience guiding real estate investments of all types. Jared has successfully navigated the real estate economy with holdings in single-family, multi-family, agriculture, commercial, retail and tax liens. His investment strategies also include venture capital and debt investments.
Jared’s professional mission has been facilitated by a belief in strong systems, processes and partners, coupled with solid industry insight and work ethic. Throughout his entrepreneurial career, Jared has found value in real estate related assets, fully realizing that proper planning leads to penultimate outcomes. Over the course of his career, Jared has been involved with the purchase and disposition of over 5,000 properties of various asset classes.
Jared attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, graduating in 2002 with a degree in Construction Management. He currently serves on several non-profit venture capital boards and serves as a Director for Westgate Bank.
Jared and his wife, Kim, reside in Springfield, Nebraska, with their four children and are actively involved at Mercy High School and St. Columbkille Catholic Parish.
With a 20 year career in farmland brokerage and management, Eric has procured, sold and managed thousands of acres of farmland, worth several hundred million dollars in value. As an established leader in the agricultural land and management sector, his clients and partners have included individuals, families, private and public funds, institutional investors and bank and trust company clients throughout the United States.
A graduate of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Eric is an active member of many local, state and national real estate associations as well as civic and church boards, fundraising and capital campaign committees.
Matt Pickens is Senior Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at Sower Investment Partners. He has nearly 15 years of private equity and venture capital investment experience across multiple asset classes, including commercial real estate, energy, oil and gas, and healthcare.
As our CIO and a member of the firm’s Investment Committee, Matt is responsible for developing and executing on the firm’s investment strategies and risk management policies. His operational responsibilities include analytics and due diligence oversight, transactional structuring, and financial reporting.
Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a specialization in Accounting from University of Nebraska at Omaha, and a Juris Doctor (Magna Cum Laude) from Mitchell Hamline School of Law. He is a licensed attorney in the state of Nebraska, as well as a Certified Public Accountant certificate holder.
Todd Mekelburg serves as Director of Gift Planning for the Nebraska Community Foundation based in Lincoln. Prior to joining NCF, Todd served as Director of Planned Giving at Loma Linda University Health in southern California where he helped families realize their charitable gift planning goals.
Todd grew up in Yuma, Colorado, but he has a long connection with Nebraska. His great grandparents met and married at Union College in 1893, then farmed in the Lincoln and Amherst communities before eventually settling in northeast Colorado. He attended high school near Shelton, Nebraska and then completed a degree in business administration and accounting at Union College in Lincoln.
After working in charitable gift planning in Maryland and Colorado, Todd and his wife, Janya, settled in Lincoln to raise their family. They have two adult children, Drew and Mandy. Todd enjoys traveling to new places and spends time on the golf course, pickleball court, and biking the trails in and around Lincoln.
As Sr. Director of Acquisitions, Ethan’s primary role is to provide customers with the information necessary to invest with Sower Farmland. Ethan’s extensive financial experience in agribusiness investments stems from over a decade of experience in understanding the agriculture real estate and credit services marketplace.
Ethan attended the University of Arkansas and has a graduate degree in Agricultural Economics.
Fred is an Accredited Farm Manager, Accredited Agricultural Consultant, and an Accredited Land Consultant. Fred has been an active member in ASFMRA for over 39 years at the state and national levels.
Prior to his retirement, Fred was the Director of Acquisitions for farmland investments at AgVictus Capital Management, based in Alpharetta, GA. He has over 40 years of experience managing vertically integrated agricultural companies, representing public pension funds for farmland investments, managing large-scale direct farming operations, representing private individuals, trusts & corporations for farm management/consulting and brokering agricultural real estate sales.
His diversified experience included developing a 50,000 acre/six state farming operation for a private equity firm where he built, managed and performed direct farming operations for the largest beef confinement feedlot in the US. Fred also managed 18,000 irrigated acres where he developed almond, hazelnut, and macadamia tree nut farms. His roles include EVP at the Westchester Group, Senior Asset Manager at BGMI Investments, Senior Agricultural Portfolio Manager for Wexford Capital and Farm Manager at the Foxley Cattle Company.
During his career, Fred has sold, managed, and/or farmed in 38 states with 44 different crops including almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, and macadamia nuts. Fred brings an in-depth level of diversified experience in agriculture investment and operations management in the United States with some experience in Australia.
Paul Neiffer, CPA, provides income and estate tax planning services and FSA planning to farmers and their families. Paul is past president of the Farm Financial Standards Council and current chairperson of the AICPA Ag Conference.
Paul writes the “FarmCPA” column for Top Producer magazine along with their Top Producer Podcast and is also the primary author of the “FarmCPAReport.com” blog. Paul is a nationally recognized speaker on many subjects related to farmers and processors including (1) tax planning, (2) estate tax and succession planning, (3) farm management accounting, (4) farm bill, (5) farm economics and many other related topics.
Randy Dickhut’s fifty year career in agriculture combining production and professional farm management experience has provided him with unique insight into the business of owning and operating a farm.
Randy grew up in western Illinois and actively farmed for thirty years beginning in the 1970’s growing the family operation to over 1,600 acres with twenty different landowners before he left the business in 2002. During his farming tenure, Randy and his brother were early adopters of no-till and experimented with cover crops among other leading edge production practices of the time. One of Randy’s primary responsibilities in the operation was the contact and communication with the landowners including writing a quarterly newsletter.
In 2002, Randy began a twenty year career with Farmers National Company initially managing farms for non-operating landowners in Missouri and Illinois. During this time, he also obtained the Accredited Farm Manager designation from the American Society of Farm Managers and Appraisers. In 2006, Randy became the Vice President of Client Relations whereby he worked with new clients, larger clients, and generational transition issues. While at Farmers National, Randy worked with landowners of all sizes ranging from 60 to 140,000 acres.
Randy took on new responsibilities for Farmers National when he became the Senior Vice President of Real Estate Operations. As the managing real estate broker for the company, Randy oversaw 200 agents conducting business in 29 states generating $400 to $750 million in land sales annually.
Over his ag career, Randy has had the opportunity to work firsthand with landowners, investors, and farmers in states across the country getting views into the regional differences in production and operations.
Randy has been a prolific writer about farmland, most recently producing hundreds of articles for Farmers National and Agricultural Economic Insights. He has also been a contributing writer and source for multiple ag publications and programs.
Jim is the retired President and Partner of Farrell Growth Group (FGG), an agribusiness consulting firm founded in 1997. FGG provides general agricultural consulting, financial benchmarking to crop protection companies and brokerage/M&A services. FGG also facilitates peer-to-peer groups of top ag retailers in the U.S and Canada.
Prior to founding FGG, Jim served as CEO and President of Farmers National Company (FNC) for 15 years. Headquartered in Omaha, NE, FNC is the nation’s largest farm and ranch management company. The 93-year-old employee-owned company today manages 5,000 farms for more than 6,000 landowners and is responsible for 2 million acres of farmland in 29 states. The company is also one of the country’s largest agriculture-related real estate brokerages, selling more than 600 farms and ranches per year.
Jim was appointed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Board of Directors in 2015, and served as Chairman until his board retirement in 2021. He has also served on the Omaha Federal Reserve Branch Bank Board of Directors with 4 years as its Chairman. Additional roles include 6 years of service on the Board of Directors of the Nebraska LEAD (Nebraska Agricultural Leadership Council) Program, ending in 2019.
Kenton’s 48-year affiliation with agriculture began in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agronomy from Kansas State University. Upon graduation, Kenton spent 15 years with the Kansas Cooperative Extension Service, earning the Achievement Award and ultimately becoming President of the Kansas Extension Agricultural Agent Association, serving on numerous committees.
Kenton then transitioned from a public educator role to private banking when he used his skills to manage assets with the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers as an Accredited Farm Manager. In 1995 after a merger, Kenton continued farm and ranch property management with Farmers National Company where he remained until 2020, ultimately being promoted to a new business development role, working closely with strategic growth planning in all business lines.
Now retired from full-time work, Kenton continues to work with Farmers National Company as a Real Estate sales associate, and has earned the top tier sales award in the President’s Circle.
Phil Peabody is an executive for a Farm Credit Association in Texas. His background includes managing corporate lending relationships for widely syndicated loans as well as farm and ranch lending in West Texas.
Prior to joining Farm Credit, he worked for ADM as an oilseeds merchandiser. A native of New Mexico, Peabody has Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Texas Tech University
As Vice President of Operations for Sower’s Farmland Fund, Rebecca is responsible for business development, acquisitions, asset management and real estate dispositions. As an experienced sales and operations leader, she focuses squarely on customer experience, measurable results, and building powerhouse teams.
With 25 years of experience in sales and operations across multiple industries, including healthcare and retail, Rebecca has navigated through large-scale client onboarding, technology implementations, multi-departmental P&L oversight and leadership of teams ranging from 10 to 300. She has demonstrated expertise in asset management, operational efficacy, KPI construction and budget oversight, contributing to significant sales and revenue growth throughout her career.
Rebecca holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. She enjoys spending time with her family, Husker athletics, and developing her amateur chef capabilities.
