Roads To Success 6.2

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At Home On The Range

Seeing the potential in real estate early in his business career, Jerry Caven bankrolled property purchases from his chain of Royal Fork Buffet restaurants.  And real estate investments have proven as successful as the restaurant business for him.

“As our business grew our involvement in real estate grew,” Jerry told the Secrets Of Success camera.  “And we went to purchasing a duplex to purchasing a five-hundred unit apartment house.  So the real estate part of our business grew as fast as we could take the cash out of the restaurants.”

Today, Jerry considers the bare land he began buying years ago to be one of his greatest assets.  “That land we purchased over the last twenty-five years is the basis for the real estate that we now develop,” he explained.

Jerry’s company begins with the bare land and subdivides it.  Then his construction firm builds houses on the lots that his real estate company sells.  But there is one kind of land that attracts Jerry Caven like no other.

“I’ve always been interested in farming and ranching,” Jerry revealed.  “We bought one ranch, one farm and then another one, and another one.  After a few years they started to add up to a whole lot of farms and ranches.”

One of the most enjoyable aspects of shooting Jerry Caven’s episode of the series was the opportunity to take part in an honest-to-goodness cattle drive on the Caven-owned Half Moon Ranch.  This particular ranch consists of approximately 100,000 acres and runs 1,200 head of mother cows.

The Half-Moon Ranch is just one of several ranches that Jerry owns.  About four-thousand acres of it are dedicated to farming.  Alfalfa, corn and grass are grown to feed both cattle and horses.

“We are mainly in the cow-calf business,” Jerry described the operation.  “That is where you view the cow as a manufacturing plant, and its product is a calf.  We calve every winter in January, February and March and then we send those calves and their mothers to the mountains over the summertime.”

By the time the calves are returned to the lowlands in the fall they weigh approximately 650 pounds.  The next step is to sell them to a feedlot.  Jerry described the next step.  “The feed lot feeds the calves grain and fatten them up to fourteen-hundred pounds, and then they go to the slaughterhouse and into the grocery store.

Moving the cattle from the ranch to the mountains in the spring, and then back to the ranch in the fall calls for a good, old-fashioned cattle drive.  The cowboy life has largely disappeared from the western United States, a casualty of modern technology.  Most ranches today use four-wheel drive vehicles and even helicopters to herd cattle, but not the cowboys on the Half-Moon Ranch.

“We’re still in the west and we still run our ranch like the old west,” Jerry assured.  “On our cattle drives we use horses and we don’t take branding chutes with us or chutes to catch them in or doctor them.  We still use a rope.”

Juan Guitterez, foreman of the Half Moon ranch, offered his feelings about this aspect of ranch life.  “The air is fresh, nice and cool.  It’s one of the things I really enjoy the most, coming up here and moving cattle.”

“Herding cattle is a team sport,” Jerry elaborated.  “You have to feel what the other people are doing, where they’re at, what they’re going to do.  “It’s working together.  It’s an extremely difficult job but it’s a job everybody wants to do.”

Muriel Caven provided another perspective on her husband’s love of ranching.  “Well, I think it’s peaceful out there, especially after all the business of being in the office, being with people and solving all the problems,” she offered.

Jerry will tell you that the profit from ranching really isn’t in the cattle.  “The profit in ranching is in the real estate.  You purchase the land, and then you farm and ranch it, and you hold onto it for several years.  Usually the land goes up in value,” Jerry said.  “In the past we have sold some ranches and each time we’ve sold them for a profit.”

Land and business are a large part of Jerry’s life, and he certainly is not embarrassed by the profits generated from his enterprises.  But believe it or not, there is something of far greater importance to Jerry Caven than profit.

© 2012 Philip Kassel