Leading Innovation and Entrepreneurship: G. Peter Ferrell III ’74

G. Peter “Pete” Ferrell III ’74 will be a featured speaker in the Leading Innovation and Entrepreneurship speaker series on Wednesday, October 11. The event, which is free and open to the public, will start at 2:00 p.m. in Harris Cinema. The Donald and Winifred Wilson Center for Innovation and Leadership is sponsoring the speaker series and associated course.

Ferrell has worked at the Ferrell Ranch (established by his great-grandfather in 1888) basically all his life. After graduating from Grinnell College in 1974, he worked as a ranch hand until 1980 when he became general manager. From 1993 to 2003, he also worked as a facilitator for Ranch Management Consultants in the Executive Link program, a continuing education program for graduates of the Ranching for Profit School. In 1995, he co-founded and was president (2000) of the Tallgrass Prairie Producers Cooperative, a rancher-owned business for marketing forage-finished beef. From 2003 to 2005, he assisted in the formation of the Tallgrass Beef Company, LLC owned by Bill Kurtis of Chicago, Illinois. He is the initiator of and primary landholding member in the development of the Elk River Wind Farm constructed on the Ferrell Ranch in 2005. Ferrell serves as chairperson of the Board of Directors of The Land Institute  which is developing a revolutionary approach to farming by breeding a polyculture of grain-bearing perennial crops. He also works as a project development consultant for Energy for Generations, LLC (a wind power development company). As he departs management of ranch operations, his next venture is to turn the ranch into a campus for training the holistic ranch managers of the future.