The Management Plan
The Capstone that Changed Everything
If you read enough of my writing, you’ll notice I drift. I follow threads, chase old memories, and meander off-topic. But I always return to one central idea: how technology can solve problems—especially in places where most people don’t expect it to. Like ranching.
The University of Montana
Let’s start here: I’m 100% Griz.
The University of Montana changed my life. It wasn’t just about getting an education—it was about falling in love with learning for the first time. And that spark came from a handful of truly exceptional professors.
Dr. Jakki Mohr, Dr. Cameron Lawrence, and Mario Schulzke—these three didn’t just teach. They ignited. They connected ideas to the real world and pushed students to think differently. Their classrooms weren’t lectures; they were launchpads.
Because of them, I stopped seeing ranching as a fixed path and started seeing it as a system—one that could be reimagined with better tools. That’s where I first encountered APIs, cloud computing, and digital marketing. That’s when I began to understand how you could blend technology with land-based business in a way that actually works.
Back to TCU
Thinking about all this recently, I found myself mentally revisiting an earlier chapter—my time at Texas Christian University.
TCU’s Ranch Management Program was rigorous, practical, and deeply grounded in reality. At the heart of it was our capstone project: The Management Plan. The idea was simple. Build a comprehensive business plan for a ranch—budgets, marketing, corral design, HR, calving schedules, grazing, everything.
At the time, it made perfect sense to me. I poured myself into the spreadsheets, the projections, the strategies. But looking back now—after years of working with cloud-based tools and building living systems—I see the flaw.
In the end, all those budgets and plans were printed out, hole-punched, and inserted into a three-ring binder.
Seriously. A binder.
All that effort, all that knowledge, reduced to a static document that couldn’t evolve or respond to the real world. What happens when the price of calves changes? Or a drought hits? Or your labor force disappears overnight?
You don’t fix that with paper.
The Turning Point
Revisiting that experience from where I stand now, it’s clear: that binder was the moment I knew there had to be a better way.
That’s when I started walking the path I’m on now. One foot still in ranching, the other in technology. Always asking the same question: how do I build a smarter, living, dynamic version of The Management Plan?
A plan that updates itself.
A plan that connects to real-time data.
A plan that helps you run your business—not just document it.
That’s the work. That’s the journey.
And that’s what this Substack is really about.