How did you get interested in agriculture? And what are you hoping to gain from your apprenticeship?May 2026
I’m focused now on being intentional with my time and my work. Early in my career and in school, I chased challenges and did what I excelled in. Eventually I realized I hadn’t been intentional about any of it. So I looked back at what I had always wanted.
My great-grandfather operated a farm, and I grew up hearing stories about it from my dad, grandfather, and uncles. I never got to live that way myself. It took a few years as an engineer and consultant to recognize that this was the path that would actually scratch the itch. This apprenticeship is my first step.
More fundamentally, I want to be a producer rather than a consumer. I want to spend my days creating tangible impact for the soil, the land, and the people who eat what we raise. That mindset drives everything else.
The first piece is stewardship. Land is a fundamental asset of this country, and protecting it is non-negotiable. But stewardship has to be financially sound to last. Good operators are too often pushed out because the numbers don’t work, and the land ends up in hands with no relationship to it. I want to help build systems that let ranchers earn an honest living from regenerative practices. Strong ecology and strong economics have to move together, or neither survives the generational transition ahead.
The second piece is community. I want to build something that creates a path back to the land for family and friends who feel the same pull. Many have an instinct for this work but have never had a way to step into it. If I can build an operation that is ecologically sound, financially robust, and rooted in tradition, it gives the people I care about a real opening to chase their own agricultural ambitions.
What I hope to gain from this apprenticeship is the foundation I can’t build from books or models. Real experience with adaptive grazing, animal care, and the daily judgment that develops through direct work. From there, I intend to spend the rest of my career building on it, for myself and for other ranchers.