Where Are They Now?
Dublin graduate Eli Caldera grew up working on a dairy with his dad. “He managed the dairy, and then some of my buddies growing up always worked with me on the dairy in the summer,” Caldera remembers. “I always had a love for dairy and agriculture.”
Now, Caldera has found his perfect niche in the industry: He helps family farms finance their operations, as a loan officer at Farm Credit.
Caldera graduated from Dublin High School in 2009, and went on to Tarleton that fall. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at the time,” he said. “I wanted to keep options open.”
He talked to some people in the ag department, and settled on animal science. After a few months, he realized it was the business of agriculture, not so much the science, that interested him.
“I started exploring the agribusiness and agriculture economics department at Tarleton, talked to an advisor there, and got signed up for the ag economics program,” he said. “I knew I wanted to do something different [within agriculture], not really in the front lines of production.”
He graduated in 2016 with his bachelors in ag economics and a minor in business management, and went on to earn a masters in ag consumer resource sciences. As part of his masters degree, he completed an internship with Select Sires, a company that helps dairy farmers selectively breed their cattle.
“They offered me a job shortly after I graduated, and I was doing consulting all over Texas, for dairies,” Caldera said. “I worked in East Texas, Central Texas, the Panhandle and into New Mexico and Oklahoma.”
His job was to help farmers structure their breeding programs to make them more efficient. “I’d look at the genetics and make recommendations on the genetics that I thought would fit their program the best,” he said.
After a few years at Select Sires, Caldera got a call from a branch manager at Farm Credit, an organization that providesfundingforAmerican agricultural producers. “I always thought I wanted to do something at the [intersection of] business and ag,” Caldera said. “I felt like this was my calling, and this was my chance to take that opportunity.”
He started working for Ag Texas, part of the Farm Credit system, in June of 2021 in credit underwriting. After a year, he transitioned to being a loan officer. These days, he works on the dairy portfolio for several counties in Texas.
“We finance anything from a 10 acre lot to 2000 acres,” he said. “There’s really no limitation on what we can finance as long as it’s justified by production. We serve our ag producers, whether it’s financing a property for them, financing equipment for them, financing a line of credit to help their operation start, and then maintaining that relationship.”
His favorite part of the job is being able to help people accomplish their long-term goals. “I love seeing what our money does for our customers,” he said. “Especially here in Central Texas, we are working with family farms that have been established for a long time. Just building those relationships [is rewarding].”
Caldera also enjoys the personal nature of the work. “[At Farm Credit] we are relationship-built, and we maintain that relationship with our customers,” he said. “I’m constantly seeing my customers, I’m visiting with them, I’m sponsoring their school programs or FFA programs, stuff like that. We try to stay engaged as much as we can.”
In the future, Caldera plans to stay with Farm Credit. “I might stay in lending or pursue a different division,” he said. “I’d like to get into our agribusiness division. That’s more of our highercommitment customers. Just a different exposure, different market. We’re still financing ag production, but it’s just at a larger scale.”
Caldera and his wife McKenna, who is a nurse, live between Dublin and Hico. They have two children, Heidi 4, and Brixton 2.
When he has free time, Caldera enjoys horseback riding, hunting and fishing with his family. “Now that the kids are kind of getting a little bit older, they know what’s going on and they can go with us,” he said. “They enjoy being outdoors. Spending time with our kids is honestly our biggest hobby. Just watching them grow and play. We like to go skiing in the wintertime and then spend as much time in the pool in the summertime with kids.“ Caldera’s parents, Mauro and Elena Caldera, still live in Dublin.
“My dad is my greatest source of inspiration,” Caldera said. “He finished middle school in Mexico, and shortly after he moved away and went to work at a very young age. He provided for the family and then he ended up coming to the States, where got a job working for a good dairy and put us all through college. He helped us all buy our first home. He showed us how to work, how to be responsible, how to set goals in life, and how to accomplish them.”
Caldera’s advice to Dublin graduates is to cultivate a good work ethic. “Don’t be scared to get some boots on the ground and get dirty,” he said. “Get out and get some experience early on. Learn how to build some of that responsibility. I’m a firm believer that building a good work ethic will one day pay off tenfold. It’ll pay you back. Get out there and make those investments.”