#42: Terry Gardner on Rejoicing in the West Through Painting
Terry Gardner is an artist who has been involved with Ranchlands for almost 10 years. He is originally from St. Louis where he had a career balancing commercial and fine...
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Alejandro Carrillo is the owner of the Las Damas Ranch located in Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert. Before becoming a full-time rancher, Alejandro enjoyed a successful career as an IT consultant. But in 2004, he made the decision to leave the software industry and join his family’s ranching business. Since then, he has revitalized the Las Damas Ranch by implementing holistic management principles– strategies and tactics that have allowed the arid landscape to thrive despite rarely receiving more than 10 inches of rain annually.
Alejandro Carrillo is the 4th generation rancher on his family ranch in northern Mexico. It was perhaps the western movies he loved to watch, but Alejandro’s passion with the Chihuahuan desert started even before he was able to walk. Alejandro enjoyed spending his summers in desert cattle ranches doing roundups, and riding the range.
It was this early exposure that made Alejandro aware of the challenges and frustrations of cattle ranchers working in the desert grasslands. The number of livestock that ranchers could carry was in decline while the inputs required to maintain livestock were increasing every year, affecting also wildlife and livelihood.
After working for several years in the software industry in the financial sector in various countries, Alejandro went back to the ranch back in 2004 to help his father with the cattle operation. He wanted to do things different as the conventional way was not working anymore. He was very fortunate to find some of the best practitioners of Holistic Management not far from his ranch, who became his mentors on his regenerative journey. He took his first Holistic Management training back in 2006 from two of his future mentors: Jesus Almeida and Elco Blanco.
Nowadays after many trials, Alejandro’s ranch is one of the best references worldwide of what Nature has to offer on an arid, brittle, low precipitation environment if the work done is in sync with Nature: water is infiltrated, rainfall is increasing, plant diversity is growing, wildlife is thriving, soil temperature is warmer in winter and cooler in summer, biomass is growing in plants and insects, livestock numbers are increasing, inputs are lower, and the bottom line of the ranch is improving. Alejandro has built a resilient, profitable operation.
Terry Gardner is an artist who has been involved with Ranchlands for almost 10 years. He is originally from St. Louis where he had a career balancing commercial and fine...
Janelle Pietrzak is a textile artist and co-founder of All Roads design studio, based in the high desert near Joshua Tree. With a history of over ten years working in...
Duke Phillips III is the CEO and founder of Ranchlands. Ranchlands owns and manages large scale, conservation oriented ranching operations in the American west, and provides management and strategic advisory services...