RANGEHANDS, INC.

Rangehands, Inc. is a small Montana consulting firm that provides natural resource management services to clients throughout the West and Canada. This work includes resource inventory and assessment, planning, implementation, ecological problem solving, developing educational materials, and preparing remediation programs for a ranches, large industries, private landowners, and state and federal agencies. Our services include:

SITUATION ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS

We provide objective outside review of land and ranch management and can identify problem areas and/or fundamental resource imbalances. These may include deterioration of soil and water resources, livestock production or grazing problems, ecological questions, personnel obstacles, financial management or other limitations to success of an operation. 

RESOURCE INVENTORY AND ANALYSIS

This service provides a detailed inventory and description of the land, including vegetation, soil, water, habitat, improvements, and environment. The condition and health of the basic land resource, its characteristics, and its potential to meet the owner’s goals and expectations are identified and evaluated.

LAND PLANNING

Coordinated planning of forage and water resources, livestock and wildlife management, finances, and overall operations is critical. We facilitate in-depth planning and goal-oriented decision-making that enable management objectives to be reliably achieved.

MONITORING and ASSESSMENT

As a land plan evolves and management is applied, it is essential to monitor the direction and rate of changes.  This provides the management team with information and feedback on performance of personnel, programs, profitability, and land improvement. 

IMPLEMENTATION AND OVERSIGHT

Our oversight can save you time, money, and headaches. As a plan is implemented on the ground, we will provide the critical oversight to ensure that all management tasks are properly carried out in a timely manner. Our experience and attention to detail go a long way in reducing the risk of failure that is always present in Western landscapes. Rangehands’ track record in land planning is defined by the word “SUCCESS.”

PRINCIPALS IN RANGEHANDS, INC.

Brian Sindelar, Ph.D.  (BS, Montana State University, MS, University of Idaho, PhD, University of Montana)

A Montana native, Brian brings a wealth of more than 35 years of practical experience to natural resource management and planning.  He was raised on a farming and livestock operation east of Billings and has worked since 1971 as a resource management consultant, university professor, and research scientist. He holds degrees in range science and agricultural production. After a 20-year career in research and teaching at Montana State University, Brian left the university in 1991 to devote full time to his consulting business, Rangehands, Inc. He is a Grassland Professional certified by the American Forage and Grassland Council.

He has provided natural resource management services to clients throughout the West and Canada. This work includes resource inventory and assessment, planning, implementation, ecological problem solving, developing educational materials, and preparing remediation programs for a wide range of situations and businesses including ranches, large industries, private landowners, and state and federal agencies.

As a scientist at MSU he experimented with new grazing technologies and range improvement practices at Red Bluff Research Ranch. His research included low-cost approaches to range improvement including time-control grazing, low-tillage interseeding, improved forage species, prescribed burning, and successional mechanisms. 

Brian has published extensively and has presented papers internationally regarding land reclamation, range management, and sustainable agriculture.

From 1975-1991 he taught a majority of MSU’s Range Science courses, including grazing management, watershed management, range ecology and vegetation, land rehabilitation, range improvement, ranch management and planning, and resource policy and administration. He developed and taught the first land rehabilitation courses in western US, including graduate coursework. Brian received a number of awards in teaching excellence.

Brian conducted some of the earliest western states research in land reclamation for the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station .  Much of this work involved innovative technologies to reclaim rangeland damaged by coal surface mining. Included was a long-term study of reclamation success funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.  He has served as an independent reviewer for the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Technology Assessment. He also trained staff personnel for the U.S. Office of Surface Mining in Denver. He has prepared requested papers for the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment on reclamation technology and sustainable agricultural practices. 

Brian has an active interest in ecology, conservation, and sustainable agriculture. He was a founding member of the Center for Holistic Resource Management in Albuquerque, and served as vice-president of the board for three years. He is intensively involved in native grass seed production technology and shares patents in a new harvesting system.  With a strong interest in foreign travel, Brian has traveled extensively, including visits to Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Canada, England, Holland, Italy, Germany, and Greece. He has presented technical papers in Crete and Canada and in many locations throughout the U.S.  

Eldon L. Ayers, MS   (BS, Kansas State University, MS, University of Wyoming)

Eldon received his BS in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology and an MS in Range Management.  Using this educational foundation he started his professional career in 1977 and has since worked as a research scientist, resource management consultant, ranch manager, and successful small business owner. He is a Grassland Professional certified by the American Forage and Grassland Council.

In 1977 he began his consulting career as a part-time advisor to Urangelshaft, Inc, a German-based uranium mining company, teaching plant identification and sampling techniques for the mine permitting effort. He was involved with an independently funded evaluation of elk summer and winter range in Grand Teton National Park. He provided extensive technical support for a project mapping the major vegetation types of Wyoming. 

From 1978-1980, he was the Range Supervisor for the USDA Livestock and Range Research Station at Miles City, MT.  In addition to implementing the range research projects at the Station, he was assigned the care and management of the Nutrition Research mother-cow herd. Eldon was a Research Assistant for the Mined Land Reclamation Unit of the Montana Agriculture Experiment Station between 1980-1981.

From 1983-1991, he served a dual role of Research Associate and Ranch Manager for MSU’s Red Bluff Research Ranch.  In addition to the full complement of ranch managing responsibilities (animal health, wintering nutrition, equipment acquisition and maintenance, employee supervision, range and pasture management, etc) he assisted research projects that involved time-control grazing, riparian area grazing, improved forage species adaptability, free-ranging animal winter nutrition, progeny testing, calf intake, and ewe nutrition as it affects lamb survival.

From 1991-1996, Eldon was the general manager for Williams Livestock company.  This private enterprise encompassed three ranches in Montana and Colorado. He designed and supervised complete rebuilding of two ranch headquarters and working facilities for both cattle and horses, as well as construction of a recreational trout pond and spawning stream.

Since 1996, he has provided natural resource management services, which include conservation easement baseline inventories, GPS coordinate acquisition with associated geodatabase and shapefile development, ArcGIS mapping, large and small scale range and pasture inventory, water rights investigations, required state permitting, pre-sale ranch property due diligence, ranch enterprise evaluations, grazing management plans, livestock breeding and management, breeding stock selection and acquisition, physical facility design, range assessments, and irrigation system design and implementation. He is currently contracted to function in the US Forest Service Interdisciplinary Team Forest Plan Revision for the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest and as the Resource Planning Coordinator for Beaverhead and Madison Counties, Montana.  Eldon is a registered Technical Service Provider with the Natural Resource Conservation Service in the areas of Grazing/Forages, Land Treatment- Buffer and Vegetative Land Stabilization, and Wildlife. He has recently lectured graduate classes in land reclamation at Hohot University in China, and will be returning for additional work in March, 2009.