HMI Welcomes Newest Whole Farm/Ranch Trainers
- 26 minutes ago
- 3 min read
HMI is excited to announce its new cohort of Whole Farm/Ranch Trainers that have just graduated from HMI's Educator Program. Each of these trainers has gone through practitioner level training before applying to the HMI's Educator Program. The Whole Farm/Ranch Trainer Program is a one-year program. In addition, these trainees were mentored by a number of our educators individually and as teaching assistants in our online courses. Thanks to Christine Martin, Linda Pechin-Long, Cindy Dvergsten, Elizabeth Marks, and Bluesette Campbell for their help in mentoring.
Our new trainers are:
Laura ranches with her husband, Regan, in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where they manage a small cow/calf operation at 8,200 feet. Their ranch spans from riparian riverfront along the Conejos River to piñon–juniper hills and is flood‑irrigated using historic ditches built in the 1880s.
After years of overgrazing by prior lessees, Laura and Regan committed to regenerating their land through adaptive grazing and intentional stewardship. Laura began taking Holistic Management courses in 2019 while exploring alternatives to continuous grazing, and in 2021 they returned full time to steward the ranch and use livestock as a tool to restore ecological function, applying what they had learned.
The San Luis Valley is a high‑altitude desert facing increasing land abandonment and climate variability. Laura is passionate about working with local landowners to demonstrate how animal integration can improve water cycles, restore productivity, and build resilience in working landscapes.
As a Whole Farm/Ranch Trainer, Laura supports producers in clarifying their holistic goals and applying adaptive decision‑making to strengthen their land and livelihoods.
Jessica lives in Navarra, Spain and started her career with a university degree in animal husbandry. She has taken numerous Holistic Management courses, a Soil4life course and has learned a lot about permaculture including water harvesting, food forest design and bioconstruction.
Jessica loves hands-on work as well as traveling. Consequently she has worked all over the world on over 30 farms in 7 different countries. Each farm had different climates, different people, different goals, and different challenges. These experiences taught her to see every farm, every situation, as something individual. She uses that perspective to help each client identify what they need.Â
Her main experience and expertise are dairy goats (which has earned her the nickname "The Professional Goat Lady"), but she also has broad experience with cattle, sheep, horses and poultry.
She combines her knowledge of animals, permaculture, and Holistic Management to offer integrative regenerative agriculture support. She speaks Dutch, English and Spanish.Â
Most of Matt's professional career has been centered around helping small businesses, nonprofits, and agricultural enterprises in the areas of strategic planning, quantifiable and qualified systems development, and financial mastery.
Matt started down the path of regenerative agriculture, due to health and food related concerns. Today, he and his wife have a small sheep ranch just outside of Irene, South Dakota. Their focus is restoring the health of the soil and strengthening their community while producing a high-quality nutrient dense product.
Matt is continuing along his educator journey and is working on becoming a Certified Educator. He wants to combine his business expertise, regenerative agriculture experience, and passion for helping others into a framework that improves the health of the land, the prosperity of the family farm/ranch, and the resilience of their communities.