About a year after catching the bison fever, one fall day in 2015, I was sitting at the kitchen table with the gentleman who we had purchased the original 70 acres from and he informed me that he was ready to retire and quit farming. He talked to me about either wanting to sell the land, or lease it out, and the pros and cons of each. One thing that was important to him was keeping the farm and land healthy, neat, and organized and being able to spend the rest of his life here at his home where he had lived and raised his family for the last 60+ years. We had developed a great relationship with this family over the years, they were much like grandparents to us and our daughters, as a few years prior we had moved into another home they owned here on the farm. Our plan was to live here on the farm for a few years while we prepared to build our dream home on the original piece of land we bought on the other side of the farm. During that time I helped him out here and there, giving him a hand maintaining the farm, and fixing up the house that we lived in. While talking about the future of the 620-acre farm, that afternoon I said

“Jerry, we really enjoy bison ranching, and the market seems very positive, what if I look into trying to figure out a way to put a business model together that would allow us to purchase the entire farm?”

After 6 months of deliberation and work towards building a sustainable business model, we decided to put our dream house on hold and commit every dime we had to go all-in on this new venture. Jerry and his wife Betty were able to comfortably retire from the farming way of life, yet finish out their glory years here in their homestead on the farm that they worked so hard for so many years to build. With their support, over the last 7 years they have watched us put blood, sweat and tears into tearing out an unforgettable amount of rusty old barbed wire, cutting massive amounts of brush, planting hundreds of acres of grass, and building miles of new fence and corrals, transforming their pride and joy Rolling Acres Farm, from an old dairy farm into the beautiful ICON Ranch where hundreds of bison now roam the endless rolling hills of green grass that are centered around a unique band of glacial hills here in Cadott, WI.

We hope Jerry & Betty are proud of the farms new purpose and we are extremely grateful to take over where they left off. Having the opportunity to raise Bison, an American ICON with our 3 daughters as a team, alongside our bison friends and family has created a story we are so proud to call ours. Welcome to ICON Ranch & ICON Meats where we turned a dream into our reality!