Wednesday, February 9, 2022
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By: Mark DeLap – Updated: 18 hours ago
Posted Feb 8, 2022
WHEATLAND – The Platte County Chamber of Commerce held its 24th annual Ag-Appreciation Banquet in Wheatland at the Agriplex Feb. 5 sponsored by Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Brown Company.
The welcome was given by Shawna Reichert, Platte County Chamber of Commerce executive director and the opening speaker was Deanna Christensen.
The event is centered around the main event which is the selection of the Ag Business of the year. For 2022 the award went to Dallas Mount and his company Ranch Management Consultants. Mount was nominated by Linda Fabian.
Guest speakers for the evening included 4th District Representative Jeremy Haroldson who provided the invocation and the Platte County 4-H leadership team.
There was a cash bar provided by Anglers Rest in Glendo and the catering was done by The Pie Tin Bakery and Catering.
Mount’s family who have supported him in every mile of the journey were present to be a part of his celebration.
“I feel that he’s followed his passion,” said Mount’s wife, Dixie. “It obviously shows in his success. I just make sure he knows that when he’s gone nothings falling apart at home.”
As a mentor, Mount not only makes businesses successful, but he has a daughter that is learning from his teaching and is becoming a success in her own right.
“I am really proud of my dad,” his daughter Gracen Mount said. “He has done such great things with this business and I am glad to call him my dad. He’s been 100% influencial in my life as well. I look up to him like no other and I actually surround my life around him and I am really proud to be his daughter.”
Ranch Management Consultants is a Platte County business that has been in operation for only two years under the leadership of local Wheatland resident Dallas Mount. The business and concepts of a school for ranching profitability has been around for decades.
The award is special to Mount as he has well-earned the accolades with the work he has put in on his business and making sure other businesses are successful.
“I’m just really deeply humbled,” Mount said. “I really want to give credit to my staff who is the team that stands behind me to make it always happen. They are day in, day out pulling the weight. To me, it’s really an award for them and we’ve had some incredible results the last few years.”
Mount, who reflected on where he came from remembers the challenges of how he came to decide to create his own independent business in a small Wyoming town.
“I worked for the University of Wyoming for almost 20 years,” he said. “To step out from that on my own was quite a bit of leap. It was leaving a secure thing with benefits and all that to make it go. Luckily I was taking ownership of a business that had a long track record of success. I was poised to be successful because of what came before me.”
Mount spoke of his auspicious start and how COVID hit with only a year of business under his belt.
“We are blessed that we have clients that were ready to get back to life,” he said. “And we were ready to go to work, so when we started doing stuff, we were one of the only games in town that were still offering an education for people in agriculture.”
The mission of the company, according to Mount is to help farmers and ranchers improve their land, their lives and their bottom line.
“I am the third owner of the company,” Mount said. “The company’s been around since the mid ‘80s. Two guys from Africa came to the United States who had kind of helped rethink ranching in that part of the world. When they came to the United States, they said that they had a lot to offer.”
Stan Parsons and Allan Savory were the two range specialists and ecologists who began their company in 1984.
“Those two men came together and worked ranch consulting and teaching schools,” Mount said. “After a few years working together they both had big personalities and their relationship kind of split. Stan Parsons founded what’s now Ranch Management Consultants. Allan Savory went on to establish holistic management which is still operating today.”
Holistic management is about thinking of land management and business management from a holistic perspective. It goes through a planning process of goal setting and strategy sessions of the best way to achieve those goals.
Mount has a bachelor’s degree in animal science and has spent a lot of time on ranches and feedlots with yearling operations in the mountains. He then worked for 20 years with the University of Wyoming doing work that prepared him for owning his own business as he developed business management tools for ranchers.
“We are about helping businesses be successful in whatever business they want to do rather than pointing out the good and the bad,” Mount said. “We ask them what they want their business to be and how are you going to make that happen. The benefit for me working in the feed yard is you get to see in a year’s timespan what it would take a lifetime of being on ranches to see. Simply because you are looking at between 15, 20K cattle a day.”
The Ag-Appreciation night was successful due to the relentless work that Reichert and her staff put into it and she of course gives credit to the community and the sponsors.
There were four nominations this year and the voting by the board was very close according to Reichert. The process of putting this night together is a culmination of a couple of months of extensive legwork.
“The thing I appreciate most is how all of our businesses step up,” she said. “This year we had a corporate sponsor which was Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Brown Company was our platinum sponsor. These two companies were paying for all the food.”
To purchase a complete table, it cost $250 and the sponsors that bought tables were Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Brown Company, Wyoming Pure Natural Beef, Quintessentials Merchantile (who also provided all the flowers), Anglers from Glendo, The Pie Tin Bakery and Catering, Farm Credit Services of America, the Wheatland Country Store, Holly Allison’s #1 Properties, CHBrown, Banner Health and Platte Valley Bank.
Those who provided door prizes were Miners and Stockman’s Steakhouse, Rafter MB Quarter Horses arena and events center, Chugwater Chili, First State Bank, Stampede Saloon and Eatery, Red Dandelion, Touch of Color, Quality Discount Liquor, Wheatland Rural Electric Association, Downtown Laundry, Black Hills Energy, Drube Home, Interstate Gas Conoco Food Mart, Sacred Birth, Banner Capital, PH Consulting, Bomgaars, Subway, El Rancho Village RV Park & Cabins, Rolling Hills Bank & Trust, Farm Bureau Financial Services, Laramie Peak Veterinary Associates and Daryl’s Carpentry Creations.
The Platte County Chamber would also like to thank all the members of the Chamber for their support, a special thank you to the Wyoming Cowboy Challenge Academy for the set up and serving dinner, and to the Guernsey-Sunrise SkillsUSA team for creating the plaque for Dallas Mount.
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