Matador Ranch & Cattle Field Day

Bio coming soon.

Cooper grew up near Helena, MT. He studied Agricultural Business, Rangeland Resources, and Spanish at Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo, and after graduating he spent four years traveling the world working on ranches.

He is President and COO of Sieben Live Stock Co., where he is the 5th generation to manage the family ranch outside Cascade, MT. Through grazing management, genetics, and infrastructure development, Cooper and the ranch team have set out to pursue a different model of ranching.

Aside from ranching, his other passions are good books, good music, and traveling with his wife and their two kids.

John Maddux is the fourth-generation manager of the family ranch operations, which includes 45,000 deeded and leased acres, 2,500 mother cows, and 6,000 yearlings.

In addition to his daily ranch duties, he is a past member of the Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition; the Nebraska Investment Council; and served on the Board of Directors of Cattle-Fax and State Bank.

Prior to returning to the ranch, John was employed by Goldman Sachs of New York in Fixed Income Sales and Trading and worked for Elanco selling herbicides. He has an undergraduate degree in Animal Science from the University of Nebraska and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago.

Barb Downey is the 4th generation of her family to earn her living with cattle. Downey Ranch operates on 6,200 acres of primarily native tallgrass prairie located in the Flint Hills of northeast Kansas.

The ranch produces Angus and SimAngus seedstock, feeders, and/or finished beef marketed primarily through US Premium Beef, of which Downey Ranch is a founding member.

Downey Ranch focuses on improving carrying capacity, soil health, rotational grazing, virtual fencing, cover crops, bale grazing, and long-term transition planning for future generations.

Jillien Streit, Director at Montana Department of Agriculture, is committed to strengthening Montana’s number one economic driver and expanding opportunities for the next generation to thrive in this vital industry.

A native of Chester, Jillien and her husband operate a 5th generation family farm. In 2014, Jillien and partners founded Stricks Ag, a merchandiser of high-quality, high-demand grains that went public in 2024.

Prior to joining the department, she worked as the financial controller for Flat Acres Farm in Chester while being involved in daily operations where her family rotates up to 18 different crops along with the recent integration of cattle and sheep.

Pat Fossy grew up on a ranch in western North Dakota, where she gained a hands-on education in ranch and resource management. She received a BS degree in Range Management from the University of Montana.

Pat worked for the BLM for 35 years in Fillmore, Utah and Dillon, Montana, where she developed a reputation for getting work done on the ground in a bureaucratic setting.

Since retiring from the BLM in 2022, Pat teaches Range Management as an adjunct professor at UM-Western and has helped initiate the Flexible Grazing Project for the Southwest Montana Sagebrush Partnership.

Race King was raised on a Cow-calf and Row-crop operation in eastern Utah. After receiving degrees in Animal Science and Beef Production Management his professional background began with internships at Deseret Land & Livestock and Gardiner Angus Ranch. As part of the Matador Team, Race looks forward to continuing his focus of improving rangeland and soil health as they blend environmental stewardship with productivity.

Pam Lyford grew up on a 3rd generation family farming operation in Northern Illinois and was involved with livestock projects as a 10-year member of her local 4-H program. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Western Illinois University in Agriculture Education and a Bachelor of Arts from Wichita State University in Business. Pam is now the Compliance Manager for Matador Ranch and Cattle, focusing on the health and safety of the Matador team and managing natural capital and wildlife projects.

Hank Willemsma grew up on a small family ranch in southern New Mexico, where he developed a passion for ranching and agriculture. Upon graduating from New Mexico State University with a bachelor's degree in animal science, he worked on ranches across the west for ten years as a cowboy on large and small cow/calf operations, intensive grazing stocker operations, and commercial feedlots in Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, and Utah. He started working with the Beaverhead Ranch in May of 2017 while he was still a graduate student and was hired full-time for the ranch upon graduation in 2018. He became the ranch manager in 2019, overseeing the ranch's day-to-day operations.

As Impact Ag Partners’ founder, and CEO of our US operations, Bert leads the firm’s investment in agriculture as a nature and climate solution across North America. A pioneer of nature-positive investment, agricultural management, and asset development, Bert has secured and deployed $1 billion in global capital to transform agricultural ecosystems at scale.