Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

The engine of time is revving as we travel parallel tracks; getting the new farm ready to launch in Wisconsin and wrapping up ranching operations in Texas.

Starting a business is a nearly overwhelming task. Starting a business 1100 miles from one you’re still running adds a whole ‘nother layer of complexity. On a daily basis, I am thankful for my partners, both business and domestic, who are making the process hum.

Being in partnership can mean salvation or torture. I’ve experienced both. One of the reasons I have faith in this business partnership is we started with alignment of our values and goals. My business partners, Karl, Justin, and Brian, have a huge basket of talents, but that alone doesn’t guarantee success. Before we got too far into deciding to go into business together, we did a number of exercises (Decisions post 1 and Decisions post 2 ) to make sure we were in alignment on our priorities, values and vision. We continue to work on that as we define who we are as Wild Type Ranch, LLC and make some tough choices on resource allocation and which enterprises to pursue.

The WTR Team at Ranching for Profit School in January; L to R Brian Dougherty, Karl Faivre, Justin Backstrom and Sara Faivre

I’d like to introduce you to this wonderful team; the folks you can rely on in the near future to produce nutritious food from healthy soil.

Karl Faivre: Karl joins WTR after having recently sold his organic hops farm in Sequim, WA. He also ran Ecoscapes, a woodland and rural property management and maintenance company. He has a degree in conservation biology. Karl is a licensed boat Captain and has years of experience driving boats for whale watching in Hawai’i, Alaska and Washington. He also is enjoying being back in an area with Norsk heritage, since his mother hails from Norway (and he is passably fluent in Norwegian)

Justin Backstrom: Justin is passionate about permaculture and the impacts of nutritious food and healthy soils on the human body. Justin is a licensed chiropractor, a talent which the rest of us will appreciate after long days in the field! He has been a high school teacher, and is likely to head up some cool educational events on the farm. Justin is also a talented musician and will be the anchor of our after work and weekend musical group.

Brian Dougherty: Brian joins us on the farm when he’s not working his day job as a regenerative ag consultant with Understanding Ag. Brian spent 17 years managing the family dairy farm in Iowa before earning degrees in ecological engineering and ag engineering. Brian is a self-confessed “soil nerd” (his license plate reads “dig soil”) and is our font of wisdom for literally building the farm from the ground up.

Sara Faivre: Sara is the main blogger, and the originator of WTR. She founded the original WTR as a grass-fed beef operation 20 years ago with her husband. Desiring to return to her Midwest roots, she put the WI dream in motion. Sara has degrees in Animal Science, Ag Business and Genetics. She is a recovering professor, and founder of a couple ag animal biotechs from back in the day. She is passionate about regenerative ag, functional horsemanship and is working on becoming a competent bluegrass banjo player.

Ralph Mitchell: Ralph is Sara’s husband and operating partner for Texas. He’s moving into retirement with the move to WI, but will still be contributing to the farm through teaching the rest of us his myriad of skills, including welding, butchery and creative construction. Ralph is an excellent cook, and is looking forward to feeding the team with what we grow on the farm.

Having diversity in our experience and abilities, combined with alignment on values and goals really does make the dream work.  We’ve each assumed different “effectiveness areas”, which means we can focus and be more efficient in decision making. I certainly wouldn’t want to try to do this alone, or relying solely on hired help!

And, as an added bonus, having partners is great for making music! (Our group plus guest singer Caitlyn Taussig at Ranching for Profit school in January)

The farm team performing at the recent Ranching for Profit School, with guest lead singer Caitlyn Taussig

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