Over the past several years, Alec Oliver wore two hats. One as Membership Director at Country Natural Beef, and one as manager of his family’s ranch near Seneca, Oregon. As of late October, Alec will put one hat away and turn all his attention toward managing the ranch and building their herd.
Alec started with CNB in early 2013, a year-plus after he graduated from the University of Idaho, when Stacy Davies, the CNB membership director at the time, asked him if he wanted a job. At the time Alec was still rehabbing injuries from a serious truck accident and “figuring out how I was going to navigate life.” While a job wasn’t the first thing on his mind, he needed money to pay bills, so he took Stacy up on his offer. Alec went to the CNB annual meeting in January 2013, met some of the rancher members and got an understanding of what CNB was about, then started full time shortly thereafter. From his role in member service, Alec became Membership Director in 2019 when Stacy retired, and he’s been in that role ever since.
What started as a paycheck became a passion. Alec spent countless nights and weekends away from the ranch to interact with members on their properties and recruit new members to the co-op. He organized and managed annual business meetings with more than 200 attendees. Despite the workload, he managed to keep a personal connection with every member and embodied everything that makes the CNB cooperative special.
As he continued creating connections with CNB members, the herd on the ranch kept growing and developing. Now as he returns home full time, Alec will be working with other family members and hands to manage their commercial Red Angus herd across 53,000 acres. While everyone at CNB is sad to see Alec leave, they’re happy for Alec and excited to see him reach all the goals he has set for his home ranch.
Alec gives plenty of credit to all the opportunities he had with CNB to connect with people. Through these connections Alec was able to tap into the vast knowledge each rancher member possessed about a variety of ranching practices. It’s knowledge he has been able to transfer to practices on his own operation.
“In the first six months working for CNB, I think I learned more than I did all through college,” Alec admits. “CNB is full of so many incredible ranch operators, managers, and people. I’ve learned a pile of information. There is a multitude of knowledge across the co-op and to be able to pick up ideas and learn the right and wrong ways to do things has been invaluable.”
As CNB Membership Director, Alec embodied the true essence of the cooperative. The cooperative is centered on family ranchers, and Alec is honoring his family’s legacy by going back to his family ranch and continuing on the path that was established over generations of ranchers.
“I’ve gained a lot from my experience with CNB, and I’ve grown a lot from it,” says Alec. “But I’m the fifth generation of my family to ranch, and I think we all admire who came before us. I’ve got a legacy to uphold, to do my ancestors right that have provided me this opportunity. So, I’m looking forward to being more focused on doing things right on the ranch.”
Interacting with and helping CNB members is what Alec says he enjoyed the most. While that won’t be his full-time job, Alec will remain actively involved in the organization as a rancher member of the cooperative. As for the future?
“You never know what the future holds,” says Alec. “I’m just looking forward to continued growth here at home and being able to push forward and grow the success and sustainability of the ranch going forward.”
Everyone at Country Natural Beef thanks Alec for his many years of service and dedication to the cooperative. They are forever grateful for his contributions, and wish him the best in his future endeavors!
