My favorite part of my work at Steward is visiting new projects, seeing new places, and meeting new people. The week of Thanksgiving I took one of those trips, crossing the country from west to east on the way to visit family.

Here's a photo journal of that time:

Portland / Oo-Nee

The trip began in Portland, Oregon—Steward’s HQ and a magnet for the creative energies of regenerative food systems in the Pacific Northwest.

I arrived Sunday evening for dinner with the founder of a fascinating business called Oo-Nee. The concept is sea urchin ranching, which involves diving for barren purple sea urchin, moving the urchin into a controlled aquaculture environment, feeding them for a few months, and then harvesting the uni which is sold directly to chefs and consumers.

Purple sea urchin have recently exploded in population and decimated Pacific NW kelp forests. One Oregon reef alone has over 350 million barren urchin—an increase of 10,000% over the past decade. This explosion in population is believed to be due to a confluence of warming sea temperatures and dying off of natural predators, such as the sunflower starfish. Regardless of the cause, the ecosystem must be rebalanced, and Oo-Nee simultaneously solves an ecological issue—overpopulation of urchin—with demand for uni, one of the world’s great delicacies, through a regional, sustainable, and traceable supply chain.

I tasted uni which had been harvested that morning and stored in salt water. It was delicious! Though urchin ranching is a concept in its infancy, I expect it to become a dynamic new industry in a few years time.

Hand-harvested raw uni from coastal Oregon

Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

The next morning I departed for Pendleton in Northeast Oregon, crossing the Cascade Mountains and trading the Portland fog for the majestic blue skies and amber waves of the Columbia plateau. This region, and in particular a subsection known as the Palouse, grows some of the finest grains in the world. Its wheat is prized all over, but unfortunately 90% is dumped into a traceless global supply chain at commodity prices before being exported to Asia for noodles.

In an effort to re-establish regional supply chains, the team at Steward and I have been working with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) on a value-added agricultural processing hub—beginning with a new flour mill to be built in partnership with Cairnspring Mills.

The project is in its early stages, with planning and permitting just underway. If built, the mill will set the standard for regional-scale regenerative infrastructure with the annual purchase of over 40,000 acres of identity-preserved wheat directly from farmers, to be processed and sold for higher value within the region while providing ecological benefits to the watershed.

Hopefully, the flour mill will lead to a processing hub with multiple symbiotic uses—such as a malthouse, abattoir, tannery, or woolen mill—to create a network of infrastructure to support a diverse array of agricultural enterprises in the region.

Amber waves of (recently harvested) grain near Pendleton

Nez Perce / Kamiah

Later that day, I continued east over the Blue Mountains, past the Wallowa Valley and its majestic mountains, over the confluence of the mighty Snake and Salmon Rivers, across the Camas Prairie, and down into the Kamiah Valley along the Clearwater River.

I was there to meet the Nez Perce economic development team, who as a tribe call themselves Nimiipuu. Throughout the day I had crossed their traditional homeland, ranging from the Wallowas in present day Eastern Oregon across the Bitterroot Mountains to the continental divide in present day Western Montana. At the center of that radius sits Kamiah, the site of the Nimiipuu origin story, where Coyote cut out the Heart of the Monster, whose blood was washed in the Clearwater River to create the Nimiipuu people. The Nimiipuu have inhabited the region since time immemorial, with archaeological evidence dating back more than 16,000 years.

I was in Kamiah to consider a site for value-added agriculture infrastructure. I was joined by Kevin Morse from Cairnspring Mills and Ben Gates from Urban Patterns—two critical partners in our work to rebuild regional food systems in the Pacific NW.

The proposed site in Kamiah is one of incredible historical significance, having been a traditional winter campground for the Nimiipuu. It's also the exact location where Lewis and Clark camped in 1806 while waiting for the snow to melt in the Bitterroots before their journey home. That remarkable history is countered by the burden of the present, as the site was until recently a timber mill; its closure decimated the local economy and left behind dilapidated structures, environmental contamination, and a long road to restoration.

In 2017, the Nimiipuu repurchased the land, having originally lost it through policies of questionable legality beginning with the Steal Treaty of 1863, which shrunk the reservation 90% from the boundaries agreed upon in the Treaty of 1855, and continuing with the Dawes Act of 1887, which subdivided and sold off "excess" land to non-tribal members. Due to such policies, the tribe and its members today only own 13 percent of the reduced reservation.

The deteriorating buildings symbolize the governmental and corporate malfeasance, but the beautiful surroundings and historic nature of the location inspire different thinking: that of partnership, where an extractive model is abandoned for one that is restorative while honoring the culture, the land, and its people.

I left Kamiah enlivened. Steward was built for this exact purpose and to apply my specialized knowledge of real estate, agriculture, and finance towards such a worthwhile cause produces a deep sense of meaning.

Crossing the Blue Mountains with the Wallowa Mountains far in the back

Over the confluence of the Snake and Salmon Rivers

Decaying buildings at the former timber mill

The historic Camas Prairie Railroad, which crosses the Clearwater River after passing the mill

The majestic Clearwater River

Sunset in the Kamiah Valley

Heart of the Monster (timʼnépe)

Misty morning fog, looking east from the Camas Prairie towards Kamiah

The rolling hills of the Camas Prairie. Grain could be grown minutes from the mill.

Eastern Shore of Maryland

After an immersive experience in Kamiah, I took the first flight out Wednesday to arrive at my family’s home along the Miles River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. On Thursday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with nearly 30 family members, four generations strong.

I spent Friday morning on the Miles visiting the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. My great-grandfather was keeper of the Hooper Strait Lighthouse, which sits at the Museum. I climbed to the top deck, knowing that three generations ago my ancestors were standing on this very spot, admiring the golden marshes and shimmering blue tidewater that makes the Bay unique.

Often, I work to realize other people’s visions and rekindle their connection to place; here, I am an active part of the story, and it was a desire to regenerate the Chesapeake Bay that initially led to the creation of Steward.

Before my journey home, I had one last stop to bring things full circle. While it was family history that bound me to agriculture, it was through food that my interest was ignited. From Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen, I learned about regional supply chains and how direct sourcing can create positive ecological and economic outcomes. But even with exploding consumer demand, capital was hard to come by. The first farmer I met with such challenges was Denzel Mitchell, who struggled to access funding to grow novel crops such as fish peppers at his urban farm in Baltimore. That conversation sparked the idea that led to Steward, and just over a decade later, I found myself in Baltimore visiting Black Butterfly Teaching Farm, a 17-acre urban farm on a city park run by Denzel and an organization he leads. When we first met years ago, I had no solution; now I hope to solve for him the issue that he elucidated.

After visiting the farm, we made a last stop to Woodberry Kitchen for dinner with Spike. Personal connections to the people and food of the Chesapeake Bay watershed is what inspired Steward, but the lack of access to capital it was built to address exists for many others with ties to land and place, who are committed to stewardship but who lack the necessary resources. When I travel, I see from their eyes the possibilities. In only a few years, it's remarkable what we—the Steward team, farmers, and lenders—have accomplished. It's also clear how much more we have to do.  I hope you join us on the journey.

View of the Miles River

 Thanksgiving spread

My great-grandfather was a keeper of the Hooper Strait Lighthouse, one of the last surviving Chesapeake Bay screw-pile lighthouses

A plaque at the Maritime Museum. Chesapeake Bay oysters are foundational to American history.