The Sunrise W Ranch
At Sunrise W Ranch, we combine multiple conservation practices into an intensively diverse agricultural system of systems to make food production environmentally, socially, and economically beneficial. Our goal is to demonstrate the abundance of growing crops and raising animals naturally, using the synergies and complexity of diversity that God has provided.
The Founder
What in the world is a retired Marine doing in Regenerative Agriculture? I am doing what we have all been called to do — follow a passion. My passion is to produce healthy food and restore our land to a healthy environment. I am learning as I go from mistakes that I and others make in the small, but growing, community of regenerative farmers and ranchers who are willing to pursue a holistic approach, not just follow common practices. Putting it that way, following a passion to make improvements and swimming against the currents of group-think to achieve different results is not all that different from the Corps.
I grew up in Central Texas and, though I grew up in a small city, I enjoyed helping my grandfather on his farm as often as possible. I am not sure how much help I really was, but his patience in teaching me made great memories and instilled a love of the land. He had cattle, sheep, and horses that roamed where they wanted, and he grew cash crops which required us to move irrigation pipes through mud halfway up to our knees. We did not understand why we did certain chores, but we saw everyone else in the valley doing the same things.
After joining the Corps, each time I came back to visit, I noticed how the land was drier, had a harder crust, and required a deliberate decision—more artificial inputs or fewer animals and plants. That wasn’t an encouraging sign of land health and caused me to pause my thinking about taking it over later.
Through Marine Corps assignments, I was able to compare how agricultural production practices around the world (Korea, Iraq, Philippines, Japan, etc.) and different areas of the United States (Southern California, Hawaii, Virginia, North Carolina) differed. These experiences and observations drove a desire to understand why certain practices worked in different areas and what the long-term effect of those practices was on future production. I then discovered researchers and producers who taught about characteristics and requirements for working in brittle versus non-brittle environments and identified differences between complicated and complex systems.
I have been joined by my son, a graduate of the Texas A&M School of Agriculture, in this endeavor to pursue regenerative agricultural practices. We have the mission to provide the highest quality agricultural products and services--God's intended way.