Meet Pam Fromhertz | Educator, Connector; restoring the land through workshops, speaking engagements, consulting and building community.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Pam Fromhertz and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Pam, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Our motto is Healthy Land, Healthy Animals, and Healthy People and the interconnection between them. It is based on holistic land management principles. I have noticed how many of us connect to the land, and I have seen improvements in the land-based on managing animals in a much more holistic manner. The land is our foundation – the healthier it is, the healthier we are. When I first learned about holistic management (HM) – everything functions as a whole, one action does affect other things, and we manage not only for the well-being of the animal and the land but also for our well-being and success – it made complete sense, it was how I naturally thought, yet so many of our systems did not seem to function in such a holistic manner.

I found myself learning and implementing HM through a passion for bison. Bison allow grasslands to regenerate naturally. Since they no longer roam freely across the continent, managing them in a way that mimics nature, as best as possible, has shown remarkable results to the land. Creating a mission statement is one of the essential keys to HM – it serves as a foundation or a basis for alignment. Knowing the importance of healthy lands led me to create my mission statement – to build a place where people can learn experientially how we can improve the land (and its effect on our health). I work at Mother Cabrini Shrine just west of Denver on 400 acres using holistic planned grazing to improve the land. The premise of this tool is that we allow the cattle to graze, add nutrients to the ground, break up the compacted soil, and regenerate the land bringing back the dormant native grasses while improving the amount and the diversity of grasses. This, in turn, improves the ecosystem, increasing nutrients, the amount of soil, the variety of plants, carbon sequestration, and water infiltration.

I believe when we begin to think holistically each of us can have a profound impact on the planet. For example, understanding that weeds might be better than bare ground. In the heat of the summer, the temperature variant can be well over 50 degrees between land covered with grasses or weeds (80 degrees) and bare ground (140 degrees). Excessive heat doesn’t allow the nutrients to thrive, which results in less desired plant growth and water runoff or evaporation instead of water retention. With holistic management, we plan for what we want, not what we don’t want. Suppose my business can help change the mindset around the land by demonstrating how animals (cattle or bison) improve the land in measurable ways. In that case, I know we have a powerful positive impact on the community and the world.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I was fortunate to stumble upon a program years ago that demonstrated the power of finding the things in our life that light us up and the profound impact of pursuing them. A few years later, I discovered I had a passion for bison – it became my light to lead me to a more meaningful life. It took some time before I transitioned out of my 1st career in the geospatial world. In the interim, I would take every opportunity to see bison. Initially, I would take the Friday off during the National Western Stock Show when the bison would be in the stockyards so I could see them. I learned of and quickly became a member of the National Bison Association (NBA) – members bring their bison to the Stock Show every January. While at an NBA summer meeting, I learned about holistic land management (HM), and I felt my guiding light grow and become more focused. While taking one of the HM classes, I set a big goal, a recurring one in many ways, to have a place where people could come and learn about the land, the bison, and their health. I believe part of the key to our health is finding our light (our passions). My big goal is slowly unfolding. I wanted the land, the facilities, the animals, to be teaching all at once and realized I needed to take one step at a time. I don’t even think I was aware of what the 1st step was, and all of a sudden, I had the opportunity to implement HM on 400 acres at Mother Cabrini Shrine, just west of Denver (20 minutes from downtown) and 10 minutes from my house. I am now building interior fences to rotate cattle from one pasture to another to improve the amount and diversity of the grasses and plants and holding educational workshops.

My biggest challenge is getting into the game later in life and knowing there is no way I can learn all I want. My workaround is to bring in the experts to who I can communicate in-depth knowledge to specific audiences while I keep learning. And I am looking forward to educating as many as I can with the knowledge and message I do have. I believe there is a needed paradigm shift in how we manage our lands – one to improve them more effectively and its connection to or own health. I hope to reach more people with that message.

I am proud to be a visionary, optimist, creative thinker, and solution-finder. We all have different gifts. Appreciating that is so important to me. I am the person who says there are a thousand solutions to every problem and that everyone contributes significantly. I feel incredibly blessed to work on 400 acres to implement holistic land management and make a difference on the land.

I know our health depends on the land – emotionally, nutritionally, physically, and spiritually. Your Return To Land is the connection to demonstrate in a metropolitan area that we can make a difference on our land, soil, and plants. The more nutrients in the ground, the more we can connect to a healthier food system and physical and mental health. Here’s to happy microbes.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
There is so much to see and do around Denver and Colorado. I would start locally by showing my best friend the Mother Cabrini Shrine and the nearby bison (the American buffalo). At Mother Cabrini Shrine there are various gardens, a museum, the Chapel and a gift shop. There are 373 steps to the 22’ statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and rocks laid in the shape of a heart formed by Mother Cabrini herself. I have to admit I had no idea there were even buildings there before I had visited the Shrine. Now, I am there almost daily working on various projects. My next stop would be to some of the local bison herds – the Genesee Bison, managed by Denver Mountain Parks, located on the north side (Genesee exit, 254) or south side (Chief Hosa exit) of I70 and two private bison herds nearby in Evergreen. Adams Natural Meats has bison to view close to the shop where one can buy bison. Big E Ranch is closer to Conifer and has bison, elk, and Yaks in a beautiful setting close to Conifer.

I love driving loops and going to hot springs. If we have enough time, my favorite loop is Mt. Princeton Hot Springs-the Sand Dunes-Pagosa Springs-Durango- Mesa Verde-the Four Corners (which by the way is in the right spot)- Silverton-Ouray-Glenwood Springs (and the hot springs). Funny, I prefer not to do the tourist things, but if someone visited for the first time and had a week, I would show them as much as I could of these hotspots. The downtown areas of Beuna Vista, Pagosa, Durango, Grand Junction, and Glenwood all have excellent restaurants. I love gluten-free food, so I am always looking for good food where we can relax and enjoy while eating. Locally my favorite restaurants with good Gluten Free options are Blue Sky and Abrusci’s in Lakewood and Dandelion in Evergreen. If someone were here briefly, I would show them the dinosaur footprints, Red Rocks, and kayak (Evergreen Lake, Bear Creek Lake, Chatfield Reservoir) or head to the creeks in Golden, Denver, and Boulder. I would also plan to do some pampering at Five Well Being Spa in Littleton.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First, Mother Cabrini herself. She was a visionary and so purpose driven. She was a humanitarian and stood for the rights of many immigrants. She was inclusive. She demonstrated the power of faith, kindness, compassion and love. She purchased land in the early 1900’s all over the world. She established 67 institutions (schools, hospitals and orphanages). I feel she has called upon me to be at the Shrine.

Secondly, Sarah Gleason with Gleason Bison is extraordinary, She owns and operates Gleason Bison near Durango and employs Holistic Management, Sarah is an out of the box thinker, full of passion about bison and the land and is a great communicator with tons of energy. She is one of the instructors for the first series of workshops ‘Your Return to Land’ has launched.

Website: YourReturnToLand.com

Instagram: YourReturnToLand

Linkedin: Pam Fromhertz

Image Credits
Many thanks to those who attended the Women in NRCS field day held as part of the Soil and Water Conservation Society Annual meeting and the use of their photos. Also, Many thanks to the participants in our very 1st Holistic Management Workshop – it was a fantastic group and a very fun week of learning and connecting. And thank you to Jen Rivera-SanAntonio for the photo of me in the field.