Five regional Estate and Transition Planning Workshops for agricultural producers were held in Abilene, Stephenville, Fredericksburg, McKinney, and Waco, Texas during February through March 2014. These workshops were developed to address estate planning with consideration for transition and succession planning. 154 participants attended the workshops representing 357 family members, partners, or shareholders who also had a working interest in the operation. The aggregated management tenure on the present farm/ranch by participants was 5,440 years. Attendees owned or managed 77,930 acres in 58 Texas counties as well as properties in Oklahoma, Iowa and Colorado. The average age of attendees was 64.5 years old with 58 percent having operated the current farm/ranch for over 30 years.
Prior to attending the workshops, 85 percent of participants had a will, 63 percent had created power of attorney forms, and 64 percent had completed medical directive to physician documents. Post-workshop evaluations indicated substantial improvement in familiarity of estate planning terms and concepts
and an increased likelihood of communicating estate plans with family members. A number of checklists, worksheets and resources were provided to participants to help them build their plans and communicate their goals with members of their chosen professional estate planning team.