Tag: afghanistan

#32 Ben Minden (US Army) – Bear Hug Cattle Company

Vets In Ag Podcast
#32 Ben Minden (US Army) - Bear Hug Cattle Company
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I’ll support you in whatever decision you make; just know that you will get fired for it. This was one of the coolest 10 seconds…

Our guest this week is Ben Minden, former US Army Ranger and Founder of Bear Hug Cattle Company – a non-profit providing veterans with the resources, technical knowledge and network support for those interested in a career in the ranching industry. Through their 10-week immersive course, transitioning service members gain confidence in horsemanship, ranch tasks, basic ranch economics, and field training at historical operational ranches across the western US.

Despite growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey, Ben became an avid fisherman and hunter, although he admits he never ate the fish out of the New Jersey river. It’s not often a guest on this show has no connection to the military prior to joining, but in the few instances this has been the case, there is usually a common event that many cite as their catalyst for their joining the uniformed service – 9/11. At West Point, Ben fell in love with this idea of an being a part of a high-functioning team and deployed with those teams to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He shares a story from those experiences he cites as one of the coolest 10 seconds of his military career.

Have a listen to find what happened and also learn how Ben is transitioning these skills into other high-performing teams at Harvard Business School and with Bear Hug Cattle Company across much of the western US.

#23 Richard Brion (USN) – Revolution Agriculture

Vets In Ag Podcast
#23 Richard Brion (USN) - Revolution Agriculture
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The core of my ethos became the need to have a constitution to take anything as far as necessary

Our guest this week is Richard Brion, US Navy veteran and CEO for Revolution Agriculture – an ag start-up seeking to reduce the logistics chain of fresh crops through shipping container-sized installations directly on land owners’ farms. Their unique business model aims to capitalize on the growing and decentralized population of small holder farmers and delivery services without adding cost, time, or labor requirements to the land owner.

The ethos Richard developed from his time in the service and defense contracting were originally shaped by some of his military leaders. This ability of these senior leaders to take trying circumstances and use them as opportunities to educate is a unique skill they develop over the years. It certainly stuck with Richard and has become a driving factor in the creation of Revolution Agriculture.

At the very least, you’ll enjoy these wild stories Richard shares from his overseas experiences. As the head of Revolution Agriculture, the technology they’re creating around the re-introduction of soil and pollinators into controlled environments is fascinating and something we’ll for sure continue to follow.

Episode 6: Keith Alaniz (USA)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 6: Keith Alaniz (USA)
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Keith Alaniz is the Co-Founder for Rumi Spice, a producer of high-quality, sustainably farmed saffron from Afghanistan. After graduating from Texas A&M, Keith was deployed twice to Iraq in 2007-2008 as a combat engineer– focused on finding and neutralizing IEDs. Keith talks about how his time at A&M helped shaped his leadership style in a theater of war, but also how he began to recognize that he didn’t fully understand the people or the culture he was trying to protect. So, he made the intentional decision to leave the traditional career path for an Army officer and participate in a specialized Afghan training program where he was equipped with economic, language, and cultural skills focused on rural Afghanistan.

It was directly because of these skills and the trust they built within the community that a local farmer approached Keith with the idea of growing and exporting saffron from Afghanistan to the international market. And the idea for Rumi Spice was born.

Listen as Keith describes a story of persistence, trial and error, and ultimately success as three former US Army officers built Rumi Spice into now the world’s largest exporter of saffron from Afghanistan. It involves knocking on countless doors, the creation of an e-commerce platform, an appearance on Shark Tank, and legitimizing a crop like saffron as an economic and sustainable alternative to poppy cultivation for Afghan farmers.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did!