Somewhere between boots and saddles, briefcases and taxis…

Jess in the national news

Would you like to read more about Jess from someone other than Jess? We’ve compiled it all for you at the Western Skies Strategies News page. Visit the News page regularly for up-to-date national news coverage from sources including the Brian Allmer Radio Network (BARN), KBHB 5 State Live, Capital Press, Western Livestock Journal and Forbes.com.

Tags: 5 State Live, BARN, Capital Press, Jess Peterson, Western Livestock Journal

Join the journey

Somewhere between boots and saddles, briefcases and taxis… an idea was sparked that a cowboy lobbyist and a highly-skilled writing professional should team up and narrate the adventures of a young Montanan trying to build a cattle operation, a cattle association, and a lobbying and consulting firm. Oddly enough, all three of these jobs have a single striking similarity—a large majority of the paycheck is the satisfaction one gains from working extremely hard to make just a little bit of progress doing what we love doing.

So here’s the deal: I am going to attempt to relay the stories and adventures that take place throughout this journey. You will soon see that I have a passion for the job; I talk a mile a minute; and my ADD often seems to drive me overboard. Fortunately for us, a highly-skilled writing professional will clean up my thoughts and ramblings…. She will make several references like—note from the editor “Jess meant to say” or “I have tried to revise Jess’s ramblings several times, and this is the best I can do.”

So get ready, we are taking a journey. We’ll all learn, laugh, and cry together. As stated, I have a short attention span so most of my blog posts will be short blurbs on any given topic that affect my daily work and play as I travel somewhere between boots and saddles and briefcases and taxis, again and again.

Tags: Jess Peterson, Welcome

Why (oh why) me?

Sitting in the kitchen at Jess’s family ranch after this year’s branding (his hundredth or so, my first), I marveled at how Jess must feel going back and forth like this – one day in the city talking as his job and the next day here physically working as his job. It seemed to me that he could be good at one or the other, that he could only love one or the other. So I asked him. Essentially he said he needed both. Essentially he said one cannot exist without the other. Essentially he said that what I see outside the windows (wide open space, a couple of working horses, the calves they had just branded) and that what I felt inside the house (camaraderie between family and friends, the ability to laugh over the day’s minor mishaps, pure physical exhaustion from hard work)—that it could all be in danger without someone pounding the streets in DC talking about it, without someone voicing the concerns and needs of all families and small businesses in rural America.

The fact that the “someone pounding the streets” happens to be him still baffles him, I think.

And the fact that I am driven to help and support him still baffles me. After all, what do I know about it? I live in DC and grew up in a subdivision in the suburbs in the South. The first time I rode a horse, it threw me; it took me 17 years to try again. The sum total of my experience in Jess’s “other world” is that my grandfather farmed in northern Indiana, which to me meant only that he woke up very early in the mornings and he had a farmer’s tan. Once my grandmother sent me a picture of cows in a field with “these are the cows we will slaughter this year” inscribed on the back. That’s it.

Now I connect to rural America through Jess, in simple ways like carefully reading his ramblings and the news he finds relevant, like adding and subtracting commas, and like studying the Farm Bill, carbon offsets, foot and mouth disease and more. Now, I look forward to helping Jess share his adventures and maybe I can even help convince other unlikely people like myself to advocate for rural America. But enough about me, let’s go find Jess…

Tags: Stacia Couch, Welcome