FAQs
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
We ride at least twice a year with our Mentor Buck Brannaman and 3 to 4 times a year with a protégé of his Ricky Quinn Jr.
- How did you get started doing this type of work?
I didn't decide to do this for a living, it just kind of happened. I worked as project manager for a large commercial electrical construction company and Jessie was a student at ASU. I was apprenticing in Arizona under Dan Knuth, as he was preparing to sell his ranch, he was grooming me to take over his training and lesson business (I was unaware of this at the time). He sold the ranch to some folks who were new to horses and offered me his existing client list and training horses. At first I started out part-time and Jessie helped too. As she graduated from ASU things started to pick up a bit with the horses and we decided to make the leap to riding full-time. A few months later we decided to move to Oregon and build a lesson a training program here. We have been here now since 2006 and have realized our dream of owning our facility Silver Spade Ranch in Banks in 2011.
- What advice would you give a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?
Do your research, there are a lot of folks out there giving lessons, make sure they are qualified and can back up what they teach. A big red flag for me is someone who gives lessons, but does not ride during them. We are horseback all day, weather working outside horses, starting colts or riding our own personal horses so when we teach we are also riding. This allows us to demonstrate what we are asking folks to and also puts out there where you can watch and say, you know I want my horses to operate like that, or, hey its not for me.