Ranchlands Podcast

Terry Gardner is an artist who has been involved with Ranchlands for almost 10 years. He is originally from St. Louis where he had a career balancing commercial and fine art. He was influenced early on by old westerns on tv and in film, gaining a love and appreciation for the American West. After moving to Colorado, Terry left the advertising world and took up painting full time. He describes hims...

Janelle Pietrzak is a weaver who lives a colorful life in the Mojave desert of California. Along with her partner Robert, who is a welder, she cofounded and runs a shop named All Roads, where they sell an assortment of their handmade textiles, metalwork, and more. Janelle and Robert focus on their respective crafts, while often collaborating on special projects. They also partner with skilled arti...

In today's episode of the Ranchlands Podcast, Jonathan sits down with Duke Phillips to discuss what Ranchlands really is.  While it might seem like an obvious question, there are actually so many layers to what we do. On the surface we are a land management company that uses cattle as a tool for ecological goals. But underneath, we are land managers that understand the need to diversify the ranch'...

Bruce McGlenn has nearly 40 years of bird and big game hunting experience in the Pacific Northwest. He is the owner and founder of Human Nature Hunting, a business that offers courses on hunting and foraging with an emphasis on the experiences and personal growth that accompany sourcing healthy food and connection to nature. Learn more about Human Nature Hunting  

Kirk Gadzia is a longtime friend of Ranchlands' CEO Duke Phillips, as well as an educator to countless Ranchlands employees. He is the founder of Resource Management Services, a New Mexico based consulting, training and monitoring organization committed to helping private and professional resource managers achieve their goals. Kirk is a certified educator with Holistic Management International and...

Dr. Caitlin Younquist is Director of Science and Education for Snaplands, an environmental consulting company that helps land managers maximize long term profit and healthy ecosystems by providing and interpreting rangeland data. We first met Caitlin in 2021 while she was serving as our local Extension Educator for the University of Wyoming, up in the Big Horn Basin near the Paint Rock Canyon Ranc...

Madi Phillips is the leather shop manager for Ranchlands. She was born and raised in the Midwest, was a wrangler at Zapata Ranch, and moved to the Chico Basin Ranch in 2013. Madi has been involved in Ranchlands' leather shop since its infancy and has helped it grow over the past 10 years to where it is today. Madi is also married to Duke Phillips IV and together they are raising their two children...

Jonathan Tullar first joined Ranchlands back in 2009, and he has played an integral role in almost every aspect of Ranchlands' businesses. He is currently the Foreman of the Wyoming Paint Rock Ranch, and he has extensive experience with Ranchlands' New Mexico and Colorado operations. In addition to on-the-ground ranching, he's worked in the direct-to-consumer beef industry and is one of the drivin...

Lynae Risinger is a ranch management apprentice and currently manages the MP Ranch in New Mexico. She started as a ranch intern three years ago on the MP and spent eight months on the Paintrock Canyon Ranch before moving back to the MP, where she has been ever since. She is proud to call New Mexico home and loves to share it with the many faces of Ranchlands, her two dogs and her cat, Boo. Learn m...

Oliver Tautkus is a ranch apprentice on Ranchlands' Paintrock Ranch, our 80,000-acre ranch located on the western flank of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. Prior to working at the Paintrock, he was an intern down in Texas on our Frying Pan Ranch. Oliver made his way to Ranchlands all the way from his home country of Australia– he moved to the United States in search of adventure, new experiences, and...

This is a special podcast episode that features a conversation between the Executive Director of Western Landowners Alliance, Lesli Allison, and Ranchlands' founder and CEO, Duke Phillips III. Western Landowners Alliance– also known as WLA– is an organization of landowners, natural resource managers, and partners dedicated to keeping working lands whole and healthy for the benefit of people and wi...

Parker Fitzgerald is a photographer and director. He co-founded a Portland-based creative studio with his brother, and they've combined their expertise in design, strategy, and visual media to work with an impressive range of clients–from behemoths like Nike and Honda to more niche brands like Leatherman and Pendleton. Learn more about Ranchlands Learn more about Parker's work

Helen Richardson is a photojournalist who has been working at the Denver Post for more than thirty years. Over the course of her long and successful career, she's covered everything from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the Southeast Asia Christmas Tsunami to all of the major Colorado wildfires since the 2002 Hayman Fire. Helen has also had a front-row seat to the massive changes in the journalism an...

Mike Giordano is a Ranch Apprentice at the Frying Pan Ranch, a Ranchlands operation located outside of Amarillo, Texas. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Mike grew up with horses and spent much of his teens and all of his college years playing competitive polo. Upon graduation from college, Mike joined the US Army, where he served as a member of the 75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion.  While over...

Dan Flores is an environmental writer whose work helps us better understand the complex and fascinating history of people, animals, and wild places in North America and beyond. He's the author of eleven books, including Coyote America and American Serengeti, and he has appeared everywhere from the Joe Rogan Experience to the upcoming Ken Burns documentary on the American Buffalo. His newest book i...

Tammy VerCauteren is the Executive Director of The Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, a highly effective conservation organization whose mission is to "conserve birds and their habitats through science, education and land stewardship." Tammy joined the Bird Conservancy in 1999 as an ecologist, performing research on burrowing owls along the Colorado-Wyoming border. She fell in love with the work and...

Teal Blake is a renowned Western artist whose paintings reflect his deep love and appreciation for the tradition of ranching and cowboying. Teal was born and raised in Montana, and he's spent most of his life entrenched in the worlds of horses, cattle, and ranch life. He's worked as a professional bull rider, ranch hand, and ranch manager, but at his core, he's always been an artist. In 2014, Teal...

For this week's episode, Ranchlands' leather shop manager Madi Phillips and Ed headed to Sterling, Colorado, where they sat down with Freddy Z and Duncan Clarke to discuss leatherwork, craftsmanship, and the art of creating useful and beautiful leather goods by hand.   Learn more about CCI here.   Learn more about the National Children of the Incarcerated (CIPs) Scholarship Program  here .   Learn...

Lauren O'Toole joined the team at Ranchlands back in 2021 when she was hired to work as a Wrangler at the Zapata Ranch. Over the past three years, her role at Ranchlands has continued to evolve, and she's currently the Events Coordinator for some of our newest ranch vacation offerings, including stays at the MP Ranch in New Mexico and horse-packing trips at the Paint Rock Ranch in Wyoming. Lauren...

Nancy Fishbein is the Director Resilient Lands for the Colorado Program of The Nature Conservancy. Nancy's team is responsible for protecting and stewarding critical lands across the state, as well as ensuring the Chapter's alignment with the land protection goals of TNC's Shared Conservation Agenda, including building a network of resilient and connected landscapes. Nancy has served on the Colora...

Dylan Taylor is a ranch apprentice at the Chico Basin Ranch, where he plays an integral role in the success of the 89,000-acre cattle operation. Born and raised outside of Fort Worth, Texas, Dylan had no ranching experience before coming to Ranchlands. In fact, much of his early career was spent in the Texas barbeque scene, where he worked for many years in some of Austin's most renowned barbeque...

GL Richardson is a Santa Fe-based painter who translates the rawness, iconography, and motifs of the American West into consequential work that speaks to broader human truths. GL grew up loving art, but as he moved through school, his focus shifted away from painting and toward building a career in the world of advertising. But after college and grad school, while working as an ad man in San Franc...

Upstate New York's own, Mike Eli LoPinto moved to Nashville on a drunken New Years Eve bet in 2012, from Boone, NC, where he attended Appalachian State University. For the last 10 years he has been on the road, in support of artists which include Nikki Lane, Lilly Hiatt, and Whitey Morgan. He is currently on tour with Chris Stapleton and the All American Roadshow. He lives in Lebanon, TN with his...

We welcome our founder, Duke Phillips III, back to the podcast to discuss the newest project at Ranchlands: the Collective. The Collective, launching May 1st, is a new opportunity to become a member of Ranchlands and gain deeper access to our mission of perpetuating ranching into the future via exclusive articles, podcast episodes, events, conversations, and experiences on working landscapes. By c...

Dr. Bonney MacDonald is a Professor of Western Literature at West Texas A&M University. Bonney's credentials are as extensive as they are impressive– she holds a B.A. in English and a B.A. in psychology from California State University, an M.A. in American studies from the University of Nottingham, England, and an M.A. and Ph. D. in American literature from Yale University. And at her core, Bonney...