Who We Are
The mission of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF) is to provide healthy food on working lands in a way that regenerates the planet and inspires others to action. Our base of operations is TomKat Ranch, an 1800-acre grassfed cattle ranch in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our team of ranchers, scientists, and advocates look to nature to guide our landscape management in support of our values.
Photo Credit: William Milliot
The mission of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF) is to provide healthy food on working lands in a way that regenerates the planet and inspires others to action. Our base of operations is TomKat Ranch, an 1800-acre grassfed cattle ranch in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our team of ranchers, scientists, and advocates look to nature to guide our landscape management in support of our values.
Our goal is to transform five million acres to regenerative land management and eaters to regeneratively grown food.
Ranch History
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was enamored with wild places, but especially the South Coast. As a fourth grader, I was treated to a field trip to Sam McDonald County Park. There I learned that a humble man, the son of slaves and the beloved superintendent of athletic grounds and buildings at Stanford University, had quietly saved 430 acres on the upslope of the coastal range populated by live oak, Douglas fir, and redwood forest ecosystems. Sam bequeathed all of his lands to the school children of San Mateo County so they would forever have a place in the wilds to visit. I was one of those kids. It never stopped affecting me that someone could leave such a legacy. Less than 20 years after Sam’s passing, others inspired by this generosity dedicated additional land to grow Sam McDonald County Park to 867 acres.
Years later, when I first walked onto the lands of TomKat Ranch, I realized I was having my “Sam McDonald moment.” The ranch was perfectly suited to bridge the growing, destructive, and unnecessary divides between rural and urban, tech and agriculture, and conservation and ranching communities in our society.
Tom Steyer and I started TomKat Ranch because I was inspired by my childhood experience and driven by our passion for environmental stewardship and support for rural communities. With the pickle we are in in the world today, the lands that make up TomKat Ranch will remain working lands—a learning laboratory where we can recall and learn how to cultivate food that truly nourishes, builds community, and restores our planetary health. We can find a way forward that respects the biodiversity of our commons, protects essential water resources, re-sequesters the excess carbon we have burdened our air and oceans with, and restores economic resiliency to rural populations who are among the stewards of the land.
I continue to celebrate how much I’ve learned from the work of the ranch and how it has taught me that agriculture is a seminal lever for achieving our shared goals of equity, human health, environmental sustainability, and biodiversity. Collaborations at the local, state, and national level have been instrumental to the success of TomKat Ranch, and we continue to extend that work through TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation. I hope you’ll join me in this continuing journey in the wilds…
Kat Taylor
Founder of TomKat Ranch
Our Founder
Kat Taylor, Founder of TomKat Ranch and TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF). Kat Taylor works in service of restoring social, racial, gender justice, and environmental well-being for an equitable and inclusive world. She is active in a variety of social enterprises and philanthropic ventures focused on deep systems change.
Currently, Kat serves as the Co-Founder and Board Chair of Beneficial State Bank, a Community Development Financial Institution and certified B Corporation that makes banking more accessible to under-resourced communities in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner – and to change the banking system for good. The bank is wholly owned by nonprofits with the mandate to redistribute excess funds to the Bank’s communities.
As Founding Director of TKREF, Kat is dedicated to inspiring a sustainable food system through regenerative ranching, training, tours, research, and school food and garden programs. TKREF owns the social enterprise LeftCoast GrassFed, humanely raising cattle and other livestock for the benefit of healthy soils.
Kat is also the Co-Founder of TomKat MeDiA, which is committed to uplifting emerging and unheard storytellers who entertain, inspire through action campaigns, and transform society for the common good.
Kat proudly served or continues to serve on the following boards and advisory bodies: Beneficial State Bank, Beneficial State Foundation, Central Kitchen Advisory Board (co-Chair) for the Oakland Unified School District, Community Development Bankers Association, Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, Ecotrust, Evrnu, Forager, Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, Harvard Board of Overseer, KQED, NextGen Policy (Board Chair), Propublica, TKREF (Chair), UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute External Advisory Board, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and many more.
She graduated from Harvard College and earned a JD/MBA from Stanford University.
See the article about Kat Taylor in
Kat Taylor works in service of restoring social, racial, gender justice, and environmental well-being for an equitable and inclusive world. She is active in a variety of social enterprises and philanthropic ventures focused on deep systems change.
Currently, Kat serves as the Co-Founder and Board Chair of Beneficial State Bank, a Community Development Financial Institution and certified B Corporation that makes banking more accessible to under-resourced communities in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner – and to change the banking system for good. The bank is wholly owned by nonprofits with the mandate to redistribute excess funds to the Bank’s communities.
Kat is also a Founding Director of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF), which is dedicated to inspiring a sustainable food system through regenerative ranching, training, tours, research, and school food and garden programs. TKREF owns the social enterprise LeftCoast GrassFed, humanely raising cattle and other livestock for the benefit of healthy soils.
Kat is also the Co-Founder of TomKat MeDiA, which is committed to uplifting emerging and unheard storytellers who entertain, inspire through action campaigns, and transform society for the common good.
Kat proudly served or continues to serve on the following boards and advisory bodies: Beneficial State Bank, Beneficial State Foundation, Central Kitchen Advisory Board (co-Chair) for the Oakland Unified School District, Community Development Bankers Association, Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, Ecotrust, Evrnu, Forager, Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, Harvard Board of Overseer, KQED, NextGen Policy (Board Chair), Propublica, TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (Chair), UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute External Advisory Board, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and many more.
She graduated from Harvard College and earned a JD/MBA from Stanford University.
See the article about Kat Taylor in
Our Team
Annie Fresquez
Director of Visitor Experience
Bella Newcomb
Gathering for Action Associate
Bill Milliot
Communications &
Visual Media Coordinator
Dago Hernandez
Carpenter
Dinorah Gudino
Guest Services Maintenance
Erin Wirpsa Eisenberg
Boardmember
Hayley Strohm
Regenerative Science Coordinator
Jessica Hartzell
Director of Operations
Jim Camozzi
Building & Facilities Manager
Jim Claitor
Equine Manager
Jose Guzman Rodrigez
Ranch Hand
Kathy Webster
Food Advocacy Manager
Kim Kitchener
Small Ruminant Assistant
Mark Biaggi
Ranch Manager
Mukethe Kawinzi
Small Ruminant Assistant
Stephanie Pittman
Small Ruminant Coordinator
Susan Hadacek
Landscape Coordinator
Suzane Rowland
Office Manager
Wendy Millet
Ranch Director
Our Town
TomKat Ranch is located in the small town of Pescadero in San Mateo County, California. Pescadero is rich in agricultural history and has attracted residents from a multitude of backgrounds and life experiences. Our region is home to a variety of ecosystems, including redwood forests, coastal prairies, beaches, and wetlands. Pescadero is a perfect place to explore how regenerative agriculture can serve human, domesticated, and wild neighbors.
Photo Credit: Gabrielle Tigan
Careers
We are not accepting applications at this time.
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Photo Credit: Gabrielle Tigan
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Photo Credit: Gabrielle Tigan
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