Copper Creek Ranch Team

Bob has dedicated nearly 21 years to the ranch and is our longest-term resident and employee.  Hailing from nearby Oliver, BC, Bob’s expertise lies in his great mechanical skill.  He looks after ranch vehicle and equipment maintenance and repairs and has a good eye for detail. He is well-connected in the community here and is our go-to guy for most all ranch jobs, including the hauling of cattle and midnight runs to the vet in the wintertime with cows having exceptional calving difficulty.

In the summer months, Bob works together with Kalevi on cropping duty. And he is on constant patrol of the ranch’s irrigation equipment and systems, also keeping them well maintained and serviced.

Occasionally, Bob also builds us needed implements. He is our resident mechanic and maintenance man and as an avid hunter and fisherman, he knows our mountain rangelands more than most Princeton residents and more than everyone put together on the ranch. He is a great outdoorsman and cares deeply about the ranchlands and surrounding community.

Bob plays a very crucial support role to each and every member of the ranch team.

Shawn is our resident cowboy and herdsman. As a young man, Shawn accompanied his grandparents who were the cooks for Alkali Lake Ranch on large cattle drives. That is where he fell in love with the cowboy way of life. Since then, he has acquired heavy equipment operation skills in the construction and logging industries and also worked for stints on dairy farms and for beef cattle ranches in the interior of British Columbia.

Joining our team in 2014, Shawn became our range rider throughout the entire pasture season. Since then, he has orchestrated our cattle moves from pasture to pasture and checked cattle on range, doctoring them when necessary. He and his wife Mandy often sort and move cattle on horseback together with their dogs and they are joined by other ranch staff in larger, significant cattle moves.

Shawn is an experienced horseman and farrier and you will rarely find him indoors. He feeds and manages our ranch horses. While we hire seasonal help to maintain and build our fences, Shawn also does his fair share of fence patrolling and fixing when need-be. Shawn is passionate about his leather work and metal craft work in which he creates beautiful fixtures and tools and handcrafts unique, detailed leather riding gear, rigging and western accessories. He is handy with plumbing, welding and electrical work. Shawn also has great carpentry skills and has put them to work building our horse hay feeders, cattle feed troughs, corral systems and helping us all build our first owl nesting boxes, mounted on trees around the ranch in the fall of 2020.

For just over two months of the winter, Shawn takes on the night shift during weeknights, to oversee our cowherd during calving season. During the spring months, he assists the ranch team, where necessary, to prepare equipment and fields for the growing season.

We have a new Manager here, at Copper Creek Ranch, who will play a pivotal role in the development and management of our regenerative forage production.

Cole’s experience across a wide range of industries such as marine, industrial manufacturing, computer programming, oil-field work and customer service all compliment his upbringing and background in agriculture.  He has managed organic production on his family’s operation and is familiar with all types of farm equipment related to cattle and crop production. Cole has a ton of safety awareness and is an amazing team player to boot.  We might, yet, get him on a horse out in our backcountry, especially if his partner Virginie has anything to do with it.  But in the meantime, we are grateful for Cole’s enthusiasm to take on our feed crops and cattle winter feeding duties, among other roles here.