Who We Are
TomKat Ranch is an 1,800 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. Over the next five years, we want to have inspired the transition of one million acres of California rangeland to regenerative management.
Photo Credit: William Milliot
Our mission is to provide healthy food on working lands in a way that regenerates the planet and inspires others to action.
Our 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 that they should 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 nation level have been instrumental to the success of TomKat Ranch. 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
Kat Taylor is the Founder of TomKat Ranch. Kat works in service of restoring social justice and environmental well-being to build a more equitable and inclusive world. She is active in a variety of social enterprises and philanthropic ventures on the West Coast focused on deep systems change.
Kat also serves as Co-Founder and CEO of Beneficial State Bank, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and certified B Corporation whose mission is to bring beneficial banking to low-income communities in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner – and to change the banking system for good.
Kat serves and has served on many non-profit boards including, Ecotrust, Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, ProPublica, Community Development Bankers Association, and CuriOdyssey. She graduated from Harvard College and earned a JD/MBA from Stanford University. Tom Steyer, Kat’s climate/energy/justice activist husband, and she have four grown children, each pursuing their one wild and precious life, too.
Our Team
Annie Fresquez
Director of Visitor Experience
Bill Milliot
Graphic Design &
Visual Media Coordinator
Chelsea Carey
Soil Ecologist
Point Blue Conservation Science
Dago Hernandez
Carpenter
Drake Swezey
Regenerative Ranching Apprentice
Erin Wirpsa Eisenberg
Strategic Advisor
Hayley Strohm
Regenerative Ranching Coordinator
Jim Camozzi
Building & Facilities Manager
Jose Guzman Rodrigez
Ranch Hand
Justin Miller
Regenerative Ranching Apprentice
Kathy Webster
Food Advocacy Manager
Kevin Alexander Watt
Strategic Advisor
Mark Biaggi
Ranch Manager
Mark Heine
Building & Facilities Manager
Mel Preston
Rangeland Field Ecologist
Point Blue Conservation Science
Nikki Waldron
Sales and Inventory Associate
LeftCoast GrassFed
Scott West
Facilities and Building Manager
Stacy Claitor
Equine Specialist
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