New WyoTech program trains students for ranch jobs

They also need more employees who understand seasonal ranch operations, range management, animal health, basic construction and basic mechanics.

A new, one of a kind program at WyoTech, a nationally-recognized technical school based in Laramie specializing in automotive, diesel and collision and refinishing technology as well as several additional specialty programs, will bring these unique agricultural skills to students when the Ranch Operations Program launches on July 3.

The 12-month program will use classroom and hands-on experiences to help students successfully work on a ranch, said WyoTech’s Off-Site Training Programs Coordinator J.D. Mathis, who also will be a ranch instructor.

Ranch operations is a unique experiential ranching program, said WyoTech Ranch Training Instructor Che Balcom, a Laramie area cattle rancher who designed the curriculum.

Through the Ranch Operations Program, students can earn multiple agriculture-related certifications through classroom theory and direct experience working in a ranch environment.

Experiences include operating equipment, learning haying operations, working with livestock, fencing and range management. These all take place on working ranches.

“There’s nothing like this in the United States that we have encountered,” Balcom said. “This is the flagship for where we’re headed. The design is very much in correlation with ranch life.”

There are range management programs and university-level agricultural programs, Balcom said, but nothing that takes a student and does this much skills-based learning.

Program participants are informed that their experiences on ranches may mean that they spend some nights on a ranch — or in a field, mending fences or caring for cattle in a blizzard at one of the three partner ranches near Laramie.

In short, they will not only learn about, but experience life on a ranch.

“They also have the opportunity to do skills onsite. That’s what makes us unique,” she said.

The program was borne from of the experiences of WyoTech President/CEO Jim Mathis, who raises cattle on a ranch between Laramie and Wheatland.

“I ranch,” Jim Mathis said. “And you can never find competent help; or it’s hard to find competent help, and as the ranches get bigger and bigger because of efficiencies and everything else, less people are exposed to the ranch life. So we want to expose more people to the western way of ranching, more specifically in Wyoming.”

He explained that in Wyoming, students will experience challenges that they might not have in a more temperate, less windy location.

"I think the hardest part of the program will be putting up with the diverse weather we have in Wyoming, but that's where you really learn who you are and what you can handle. When you get tested by fire, you know that you can make it through it," J.D. Mathis said.

Jim Mathis said in addition to the skills, he wants students to learn the work ethic of a rancher and learn to be aware of everything that makes a ranch successful.

Although the program is built on the needs of Wyoming ranch life, Balcom said, the skills can be taken to ranches everywhere. A ranch in Texas may have different plant life, different climate, but basic skills can travel anywhere.

"Even though they may go to Texas, they may not have larkspur or altitude, but when they get to where they are going, they still have the experience of knowing they have to look this up,” she said. "Core to the program is those aspects that you have to have, no matter where you are. Things like low stress cattle handling. It doesn’t matter where you are, if you want to raise cattle that are healthy, you have to handle them with low stress.”

“We want as much hands-on training as possible. We need to teach the theory behind that, but then get out and give them the hands-on learning experience," J.D. Mathis added. "That’s where you get your skills, getting your hands-on.”

For example, he said, one of the students currently enrolled will combine the practical aspects of the WyoTech program with a bachelor’s degree.

“A future student has gone two years to a university for an ag degree. She has been to the university farm half a dozen times, if that. She’s interested in ag, so she wants to come here, do some working hands-on, and then go back and finish her degree, but it will give her a lot broader knowledge by getting her hands-on, instead of just sitting in a classroom and learning about it without experiencing it,” J.D. Mathis said.

At the end of the program, Jim Mathis said he anticipates that graduates will be employable by some of the big ranches in Wyoming, where operations can be as large as 100,000 acres.

“They may need to be courted by bigger ranches,” he said. “But we are pretty well connected with some huge ranches that need help. They milk 130,000 cows a year and have a 225,000 head feed lot, so if a student wanted to go work, they will be courted pretty good. Especially if they can drive a stick shift pickup, backup a horse trailer, move cows and irrigate.”

The Ranch Operations Program will offer enrollment twice per year starting with the class in July and again on Jan. 2, 2024.

The current class will start with four students and eventually open to 12. Six students are enrolled for the January program.

Tuition is $25,000; student housing is available but not included in the tuition. Some agriculture and trade scholarships are available, Balcom said.

“This is for an introductory-level employee, maybe someone who came from the city and always wanted to learn about ranching, or grew some 4-H pigs in town or just outside of town here, or like livestock but never had the opportunity to grow up on a ranch,” J.D. Mathis said. “This would be an opportunity to get into that lifestyle.”

Balcom said she hopes the program will eventually attract a variety of students.

“When you ask about what type person would come, we envision older people as well, retirees,” she said. “There’s a push for homesteading, people who are hungry for it, but haven’t had the opportunity to try it. At 40 years old, maybe a wife wants to do it; has married onto a ranch. I want to open this up so it isn’t attracting only young people.”