From Field Offices to $220B: Inside USDA’s Lending Empire

In this episode of The Center for USA Lending’s The Lending Brief, sponsored by Allocore, we sit down with longtime USDA leader Roger Glendenning for a sweeping look at one of the federal government’s largest and most complex lending portfolios. Drawing on a 36-year career spanning field offices to the C-suite, Roger walks us through the evolution of rural development programs, from knocking on doors to collect loan payments to managing a $220 billion portfolio serving over a million borrowers.

He shares insights on who these programs serve, from first-time homebuyers to rural utilities, and how federal credit has adapted to new priorities like broadband access. The conversation also explores persistent challenges, including fragmented borrower experiences, outdated technology, and the need for stronger coordination across agencies.

Finally, Roger makes the case for shared services as the future of federal lending, highlighting opportunities for cross-agency collaboration, centralized platforms, and smarter use of existing contracts to modernize how government delivers credit. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

The United States government is one of the largest providers of credit in the world.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

We're talking five trillion dollars larger than the GDP of most nations in loans and loan guarantees that are made through more than a hundred different programs.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

And with that huge portfolio comes fragmented systems, rising fraud risks, but a lot of well-intentioned people trying to hold it all together with digital duct tape.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

These programs are critically important to keep the nation's economy humming and to help Americans at critical junctures of their financial lives. Welcome to the lending brief. I'm Robert Shedd. And I'm Doug Chris Atello. We're going to talk with the people who actually know what's working, what needs to improve, and what will it take to bring federal lending into the 21st century? Welcome everyone to this week's podcast from The Lending Brief. Our guest today is Roger Glen Denning, who I have known for decades, who I sort of kid him once in a while, that I consider him Mr. USDA, has done so much work at the United States Department of Agriculture through the years, particularly on loan programs, housing loan programs, and other. We're going to jump into that. So I just want to kick it off by turning it over to Roger and seeing if he could tell us a little bit about his career and how he became involved in running federal loan programs.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Sure. Hi, everybody. Thanks, Doug. Thanks, Robert. Great to be here. It's been a pleasure crossing paths with you gentlemen over the course of our careers in Washington, D.C. And uh great to get a chance to talk about some of these topics uh revolving around federal credit with you here today. So sure, I uh I retired in March of this past year, 2025, after 36 years at the department. So during that time I held 11 different positions. Wow. I I started my career back in the uh the second Reagan administration term. I was a career career employee, but started then right out of graduate school from University of Delaware, their college of bag. And I started in one of our many field offices across the country in Delaware, and uh cut my teeth there, learning the business of uh of managing federal credit programs, making housing loans. And at that time, we actually were involved in the farm loan programs, too, what was called the farmers home administration. So we did everything from uh housing appraisals ourselves, chattel appraisals, uh farm operating loans, housing loans, uh community facility loans, chattel visits, things like that. We collected payments, uh knocked on doors, collected payments from borrowers. Uh people have some stories to tell. I've I've got some stories to tell about that. We took cash back in the day. It was an awesome way to start my career, and I think really formed the foundation of the rest of my journey throughout my career. And I look back those years, those 10 years in the field, we called the field uh most fondly, the the you know, the most fond, fond, memorable part of my careers. Moved to DC in '96, was a program manager there in our housing programs, was asked to come over and serve in our under-secretary's office as a budget officer. That just was out of the blue, came from the program side. I got pulled over to the under-secretary's office. And that's really where I got in involved in the financial side of credit program management, working with OMB and the Hill and the appropriation subcommittees, et cetera, and uh learned a lot about federal credit program management. I went on to be uh RD's budget director, uh, then CFO for about five years, and I finished my career as our chief operating officer uh last year. It's been a great career, great journey. A lot of people helping me along the way. Couldn't have done it without them, but that's kind of my story in a nutshell of uh my 36 years at the department.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

So, Roger, having spent 36 years at the department, give us a bird's eye view of the credit landscape at the department, which I believe we discussed before we got on, has more loan programs than any other department in the federal government, which is saying a lot.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Rural development, thanks, Robert. Yes, rural development has scores of federal loan, federal credit programs, both direct loan programs and loan guarantee programs across its landscape. Um, the Farm Service Agency, which is now a separate agency in USDA, also has several loan programs, not quite the uh the number and the scope uh that rural development has. When I left, we had a portfolio outstanding principal balance of about$220 billion and uh over a million loans across that landscape. We have credit programs in the housing space, that being single-family housing, multifamily housing, community facilities, things like uh fire stations, uh health clinics, schools, et cetera, we're involved in that space from a credit standpoint in rural areas across the country. We have a rural utility service that's involved in direct lending for rural electric cooperatives, broadband, distance learning and telemedicine programs, et cetera. And we also have a rural business space where involved helping rural businesses and rural cooperatives thrive, get the credit they need to establish business or keep businesses operating across rural America. So uh pretty big space, pretty diverse space, and uh a lot under the umbrella of rural development.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

So the programs have evolved quite a bit over time. I mean, if if we think back to the Great Society, or I'm sorry, the New Deal programs of the 1930s, there was a big emphasis on bringing electricity and telephones to rural areas. How how have those programs evolved through the years?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Well, uh, Doug, now now the uh the emphasis is uh you know, in addition to that that facet uh back in the day, broadband deployment across rural America is a huge emphasis of the department and has been across multiple administrations over the last 20 years. So you're just seeing the evolution of the technology and and emphasis in getting getting broadband in uh in as many places across the rural landscape as as we possibly can. So big big evolution. I I uh also in the mid-90s, we split from our our uh our brethren in the on the farm side, and they they peeled off and established their own agency that that was done legislatively called the farm service agency back in the mid-90s. Rural development concentrated then on those areas I spoke about before to help rural communities thrive. And the ag sector, the farm sector was concentrated on, is concentrated on by the farm service agency. So we still have uh Doug and Robert, we still have our field office community. We still have over 400 field offices across the country. You know, that's still a legacy from back in the day. We don't have as many field offices as we used to, but we still have a presence in most rural communities across the country, more or less. So we still have our field office structure, as does the farm service agency, to help make sure we meet customers where they need it out in those rural communities. So that's still there and a legacy of uh bygone days.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Can you talk a little bit more about the customer? These are critical benefits that you provide to, as you describe it, a wide array of recipients. Paint if if you can paint a picture of a typical borrower or a set of borrowers, I think that would really sort of bring it to life.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Great. A lot of the work I did back in the day and that we still do in our field offices involves serving uh customers who are looking for affordable housing. Most of these, all of these customers are low or very low-income families and individuals, usually first-time homebuyers, many times don't have a lot of experience in real estate or purchasing a home or down payments for those kind of things. Our programs were are meant to serve uh you know that that cohort and young first-time homebuyers, young families. We we also have programs that serve disabled individuals for housing, elderly families, a lot of our multifamily housing programs are are uh are busy in that space, Robert. So uh we run the gamut, you know, especially trying to serve the affordable end of the spectrum uh in rural America.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

So how do you know which program to take advantage of, Roger? Say you're um you were recently an enlisted person in the military, you got out, moved to a rural area. So ostensibly you'd be eligible for loan programs from Department of Veterans Affairs, Federal Housing Administration, and Department of Agriculture RD. How do you uh how would you go about getting a loan if you were in that situation?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Well, I think you'd you'd have to explore your options.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

And uh there'd be some uh discussions from the loan officers that uh work for those various agencies about what the the best choice might be. It's gonna depend on the circum the circumstances of the the uh the borrowers, of course, but uh we could do, I think the federal space could do a little better job in coordinating those uh those types of services and uh maybe some kind of one-stop shop where uh potential applicants could go and say, geez, uh I'm interested in it in an FHA loan or a VA loan or a USDA rural development loan, which one's the best for me? And uh, you know, I I think uh having some kind of portal or technology that would allow those customers to decipher where their best uh route would be would be really helpful. Uh meantime, you know, I think the standard uh outreach and community outreach that uh our agencies do uh is how that information gets out there.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Some of the conversations Doug and I have been having are about the evolution of this whole landscape. Are there any lessons? 36 years is a good chunk of time. When you and I were together in the 90s, you were already a legend. So you you you you you earned that title early. What what lessons did you learn in your career? Anything you would have done differently?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Well, I uh one thing or or there's there's probably quite a few things that I might uh if if I I I look back hard and I decided that maybe I should have gone this way rather than than that. And I don't want to make it sound like I've had a blessed career, but one thing, Robert, to to turn that around a little bit about what I really believe strongly in that I was fortunate enough to uh to have evolved in my career was I was able to get some experience both on the program side as a program manager and delivering the programs to customers, managing programs, and on the finance side and the budget side as the CFO and budget director. So I really feel those two types of experience matched up together for a federal program manager or a federal credit manager are just uh optimal.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

So you've got you've got you've got empathy for both sides of that tension.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yes, sir. And and I think, and I I've uh it's core for me that that's really, really important to have when you sit on the finance side and the budget side, or you're working with OMB and or you're working with program managers explaining their subsidy rates and and uh and how the budget process works, etc. I just think it's so important to have had some experience, to be able to have sat in their shoes and know how those program managers are thinking on what it looks like on their end, what drives them, what motivates them, and how to tie those two pieces, blend those two sides together, the finance and the program side, into one cohesive approach for uh for program delivery. So if I had one message uh for budding federal credit program managers uh or finance and budget and finance people involved in federal credit, it would be try to get some experience on those two sides of the house so that you really have a well-rounded viewpoint of how this thing, how these things really fit together for optimal program delivery. I hope that makes a little bit of sense, Robert. Oh, it makes great sense. So yeah, that that's a real lesson learned for me. And and uh I was you learned it by doing it. You learned it by doing it. I was really fortunate to have had the opportunities I did to do those things and uh wouldn't trade it for the world. I I can actually see when you know when certain managers might not have uh the best perspective of the other side and how they approach things and how to try to solve solve problems. You can you can see that, you can feel that, and you have to navigate your way through that. It can get tricky, so it really helps if you have a a blended uh experience. So that's uh strong words of advice from me about how how to proceed in your careers as federal federal credit managers.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

That's that's just fantastic advice, Roger. I you know, I think everyone delivering a federal program, regardless of credit, non-credit, any kind of program, you have to have a mindset where you're constantly thinking about the benefits that are being conveyed relative to the cost. You can't lose sight of the second part of that equation. So I think that's great advice. Go ahead. I I was I was just gonna say we're we're wrapping up here. Roger, having you on the call and listening to your intro about working in the field, knocking on doors, trying to get loan repayments, even partial. I've actually been out at USDA's centralized loan servicing center, at least when it was being initially set up. I it was a huge advance. I have to ask you to either confirm or dispel a myth that's used about record keeping on USDA loans through you know much of its history up till the establishment of the servicing center. Servicing was recorded on three by five index cards and a pencil. Is that is that myth or reality?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Well, I think I think it it it it's not when I was when I was uh starting out my career, that that was not a myth. We called it a tickler system, a follow-up system. And uh we did a lot of things by checking boxes and keeping track of things on uh on index cards and and the like. Yeah. We've evolved since then, Doug, and uh pulled a lot of those servicing functions into what into what you just mentioned, our our centralized servicing center in St. Louis, Missouri, back in the mid-90s. But uh we still need uh big investments in technology to get into the modern age for uh to support our customers. We only recently this year deployed a customer portal for our single family housing direct loan borrowers whereby they could actually get online or use their phones to access their accounts and check statuses and payment applications and things. That was something we just deployed in October, 20 years behind the uh the the rest of the uh the private sector in that regard, but it's there now. So uh we're taking bummy steps and we're getting right, we're getting there.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

We're getting there. We've come a long way and we still have a long way to go. All the way to go.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

That raises the question, and it it would I would don't want to miss the opportunity. We're here on behalf of the Center for Use USA Lending, after all. The the story you've described is is one thread of modernization. Do you see an opportunity for credit programs across the federal landscape for a shared service or at least better collaboration on modernization?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

I I sure do, Robert. And I'm a strong proponent of that. I think there are tremendous opportunities, and I think we could get tremendous support from organizations like OMB to develop and take steps towards shared service platforms among federal credit programs. There's so many opportunities there. I think the sky's the limit. One example I've thought about a lot is just for guaranteed loan programs, just having a central portal for approved lenders whereby the federal credit agencies could share information or access information on the approved lender communities for guaranteed or insured programs that are often doing some of the same kind of things, lending money to uh to borrowers, VA, FHA, rural development. I think that's a great opportunity. I think there's large contracts at some agencies that uh other eight other federal credit agencies could easily piggyback off of and utilize for some of the same kind of activities in loan servicing. We did that at rural development a few years ago with the Department of Veterans Affairs for REO, real estate-owned collateral disposition in single-family housing. We weren't doing it very well ourselves at USDA. We were costing uh excess uh costs compared to how the VA was doing it. We just approached BA and asked them if we could utilize their contract and their vendor to do the same thing that we were doing, not nearly as successfully. Got a chance to to uh partner with them for several years, and it worked out beautifully. I'd love to see more things like that, Robert and Doug, as the uh federal credit community evolves. It's uh it's uh it's a great way to think about things, and I think it would be uh be good government.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Great. All right, well, I on that fantastic final note. I think I think we're wrapped. Robert, any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

No, no, no. Great to see you, Roger. Thanks for spending your time with us. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate the chance to be here and uh share a few thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

All right, great, thanks.