The American Bankers Association announced the recipients of both the Bruning and Blanchfield Awards, the association’s premier awards presented for contributions to ag banking. This year’s Bruning Award will be presented to Al Tubbs chair of Ohnward Bancshares, in Maquoketa, Iowa.
Tubbs, a second-generation banker, was raised on a grain and livestock farm in eastern Iowa and spent a short time teaching agricultural finance at Oklahoma State University before becoming president of First Central State Bank in DeWitt, Iowa. Tubbs served on USDA’s Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee during the 1980s farm crisis, when he helped start a program to share the loss of income and capital in production agriculture among producers, lenders and the government. Tubbs has been involved with ABA for many years, serving on several councils and committees and as chairman of the association in 1991.
Winning this year’s Blanchfield Award—which is presented to a non-banker for contributions to ag and rural banking—is Mark Gold, founder and managing partner of Top Third Ag Marketing. Gold has spent the last two decades helping farmers determine when to sell their products at the best market prices. He started in the ag industry as a runner for the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1973 and spent 20 years working as a floor broker and a pit trader at the Chicago Board of Trade. Both awards will be presented at the ABA Unconventional Convention, Oct. 19-20.
