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Robert Coleman
Director, Office of Secondary Market Oversight
McLean, Virginia

“If you are interested or involved in agriculture and want to work in this field, FCA provides a great opportunity to learn new skills and stay challenged. This opportunity has allowed me to change jobs without changing employers, which has been very satisfying to me.

“I started working at FCA in McLean in 1986, right out of Virginia Tech with my degree in agricultural economics. I come from a long line of farmers—my parents and many generations before them have had a beef cow-calf operation in central Virginia—and I knew I wanted to do something related to agriculture, but not necessarily farming.

“Being in the headquarters office, I found many opportunities to work with other offices and to benefit from rotational assignments. I got to meet so many people in different capacities here as well as in the institutions I traveled to—something many employees don’t do so early in their careers.

“After I became a commissioned examiner in 1990, I moved into a technical support unit within the Office of Examination. I worked for three years on examination issues such as borrower complaints, technical questions such as interpretation of regulations, and prior approvals for activities that FCS institutions wanted to do. In 1994, I was asked to help in the regulations development area. I really enjoyed that assignment, too, and stayed there until two years ago when I moved into my current job.

“As Director of the Office of Secondary Market Oversight, I am responsible for the oversight, supervision, and regulation of Farmer Mac. I need to coordinate with the Office of Examination because we borrow examiners to complete examinations of Farmer Mac. I also interact with all the other office directors in the Agency on strategic planning, human resources, and other issues, so I have been involved in Agency-wide issues.

“The skills I acquired as an examiner, particularly in presentation and writing, have been most helpful to me in all my jobs with FCA. The ability to get up in front of a group and cogently present your ideas and findings, knowing that other people might not agree with them, serves anybody well.

“The four people who had my current position before me are still with FCA in other capacities, as are the two folks who recruited me 21 years ago at Virginia Tech. I’ve worked for FCA in four different jobs, and I think there are still opportunities here to learn and do different things.”

• Patrick Fairchild, career intern examiner, level 1, Bloomington
• Jennifer Nelson, career intern examiner, level 1, Dallas
• Benjamin McMahan, associate examiner, level 3, Denver
• Kevin McAdoo, associate examiner, level 3, McLean
• Sarah Kreger, certified IT specialist, McLean
• Michael Anderson, program manager, IT/Operations Examination, Denver
• Robert Coleman, Director, Office of Secondary Market Oversight, McLean
• Eric Howard, senior policy analyst, Office of Regulatory Policy, McLean