Don owns and operates Grassfed Livestock Alliance, LLC (GLA), a
coalition of Grassfed producers. GLA was formed in 2006 to provide a
fair and sustainable market for family farms and ranches that put their
care, labor, and reputation into the quality of meats they raise. GLA
currently supplies local Grassfed beef to Whole Foods Market locations
in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Don grew up in Austin, Texas and currently ranches in the Texas Hill
Country with his wife, Debbie, where they raise conservation heritage
Texas Longhorn cattle. Don is a past president of American Grassfed
Association and is currently on its Board of directors and chairs its
Standards/Certification Committee.

Roundtable Facilitator

American Grassfed Association Standards Updates

Kathy is the food advocacy manager at TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation. The ranch exists to practice and promote regenerative agriculture, inspire and catalyze action to transform five million acres to regenerative land management, and to shift five million eaters to purchase food raised from regenerative farms. Growing up in California, Kathy studied nutrition/dietetics at CSU Chico State and is passionate about food and farming. She has been with the ranch since 2007 and, in 2008, helped launch the ranch’s grassfed beef business, LeftCoast GrassFed. Kathy is on on the board of American Grassfed Association and is the vice president. At TomKat Ranch, she works on various projects, including Beef2Institution, improving the quality of school food, overcoming processing issues for ranchers, certification adherence and implementation, and building consumer demand for regenerative agriculture.

Roundtable Facilitator

American Grassfed Association Standards Updates

Robyn Paulekas is a Senior Mediator and Program Director at Meridian Institute. She has led and supported both domestic and international projects on agriculture, water, conservation, outdoor recreation, and climate change—often working at the nexus of more than one of these issues. She currently facilitates a group of ranchers, researchers, NGOs, and others who are exploring the intersection of western rangelands and data. They are digging into some big, hard topics like public land grazing, as well as drought and ranch resilience.

Robyn has extensive experience finding and catalyzing collaborative solutions. Prior to Meridian, Robyn applied geospatial information to find solutions to water-related conflict in the Klamath Basin in Oregon. At the University of Wyoming Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, she supported multi-stakeholder dialogues on energy, climate change, and endangered species.

Away from work, Robyn can be found chasing her two wild and curious sons through the mountains, prairies, and rivers of the West.

Roundtable Facilitator

Supporting Innovation and Flexibility in Public Land Grazing

Deborah Clark is a partner with her husband Emry Birdwell at the Birdwell and Clark Ranch near Henrietta, Texas. Deborah and Emry have worked for the past 20 years to improve rangeland conditions through holistic and regenerative management practices. Recently, a sheep enterprise was added to the stocker operation. Deborah now focuses on “saving the ranch”. External challenges include pipelines, highway development, transmission lines, and a proposed reservoir that would decimate the current grazing management and inundate 2,000 acres of prime riparian habitat and native tall grass prairie. Deborah and Emry put the ranch into a conservation easement and Deborah leads efforts on a local, regional, and statewide basis to defeat the proposed reservoir.

Roundtable Facilitator

Working with Conservation Easements & Other Ag Land Protection Ideas

Latrice Tatsey (In-niisk-ka-mah-kii) was raised on her families cattle ranching operation on the Blackfeet Nation in northwest Montana. Latrice graduated from Montana State University with her bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource and Rangeland Ecology and completed her mater’s degree in Land Resources and Environmental Sciences. Latrice has previously worked for Piikani Lodge Health Institute where she worked with cattle producers on grazing practices that are influenced by cultural science and cultural relationships with the land. Her goal is to continue helping tribal producers improve their operations while focusing on relationships based practices that improve the health and well-being of the land.

Plenary Speaker

Buffalo Restoration at Blackfeet Nation