Matt Skoglund '01 was a member of the Middlebury men's ice hockey team and majored in American Civilization with a minor in Economics. In 2018, Matt and his wife, Sarah, started a bison ranch rooted in holistic management

and regenerative agriculture principles in Bozeman, Montana.
 
Tell us a bit about your career path after Middlebury and how it led you to owning and operating a bison ranch. 
My path after Middlebury to starting North Bridger Bison was both non-linear and non-traditional. I went to law school, clerked for a federal magistrate judge for a year, and then spent two years in the litigation group of a large law firm in Chicago. In 2008 my wife, Sarah, and I moved to Montana a month after we got married. I spent the next decade doing environmental policy work for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). We had two kids along the way – Otto (7) and Greta (4) – and I eventually began craving to do something tangible, land-based, conservation-based, and on my own.
 
I love nature and the outdoors, I am passionate about food, and I love to hunt, garden, cut firewood, and do things that are physical and real. While I was at NRDC, the main issue I worked on involved the policies around bison management, so bison were a part of my life for a long time. The bison ranch seed got planted multiple years ago, one thing led to another, and – somewhat improbably – here we are, having started North Bridger Bison from scratch in 2018.
 
What have been some unexpected challenges and lessons learned from being a bison rancher?
There are many. I've endured all sorts of mishaps – from burning a truck to the ground to badly breaking my ankle. I think the biggest lesson is that you have to really slow down out there with the bison. You are dealing with large animals, weather that can be formidable at times, and – quite literally – life and death. So, you have to slow down, and you have to pay attention to the details. You can't rush things. There are many great life lessons to be learned on a ranch, and while this has definitely been a roller coaster – with higher highs and lower lows – I believe very strongly in what we are doing here, and I absolutely love it.
 
What is one piece of advice that you would like to pass down to current Middlebury student-athletes?

Take nothing for granted and embrace every minute of practices, games, the wins and the losses, the ups and the downs, workouts, team meals and bus rides. Stop, look around, and take it all in. It's such an amazing, extraordinary privilege to attend Middlebury College and play a sport there. I am still so close with so many of my hockey teammates, and I just have the greatest memories of playing hockey those four years. Embrace it, be present, be grateful, and enjoy it.
 
What was your Midd Moment?
There are so many, as I really loved my time at Middlebury – at the rink, in the classroom, in town and in the mountains. Through hockey I was also fortunate to meet a lot of wonderful people outside the college, which is something I'm really grateful for. But if I had to pick one thing, I'd say it was the feeling of excitement towards the end of the hockey season. Hockey started right away with gym workouts and dryland training in the fall – then it was a full season. And come late February and early March, the playoffs were right around the corner. Each year we always fully expected to win the NCAA Championship, and so when the playoffs arrived and the stakes got higher and the games got bigger and the excitement and pressure really built, I just loved the intensity of all of that – really, really loved it.