Alex Beal Podcast

"Ret is inspired by his passion for natural remedies and committed to helping people find a deeper connection to the natural world. He is an outdoors-man, endurance athlete, environmentalist, husband, and father."

Links: 

Ret's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imretty/?hl=en 

NED: https://helloned.com

Neal Ritter lives in Boulder, CO with his wife Gelsomina and two kids on Fire Willow Farm. Neal has been hooked on primitive living skills since childhood. He spent his wandering years traveling through many foreign countries and has thrown himself into primitive skills at wilderness schools around the country and primitive skills gatherings. He is seeking the hybrid primitive-modern living model, where ancestral skills are integrated into everyday life. His particular passions are tracking, hunting and the various aspects of woodcraft, and his enthusiasm in games is legendary. 

André Houssney is the founder of Jacob Springs Farm and Sambah Naturals and the father of Elias, Silas and Ezra.

Andre started a co-op of farmers in Zambia in 2004, Currently with 1,196 farmer-members they produce mainly certified Organic Honey and Beeswax as well as essential oil crops for import to the USA.

André is a first generation immigrant born in Beirut, Lebanon during that country's civil war which lasted from 1975 to 1992. As a child, the Houssney family, escaping war, moved several times within the Middle East and Europe before finally settling in Boulder, Colorado when André was in elementary school.

As a refugee from a war-torn country, at first Andre did not adjust well to life in the United States, he did found a refuge in working on the Niebur farm (West of 75th and west of Dry Creek between Baseline and Arapahoe) from a young age. Jay Niebur, who was the president of the Enterprise Ditch Co. and a capable farmer and stockman, trained Andre in irrigation, training horses, operating farm machinery and other farm skills starting in grade school. There he fell in love with agriculture and began to keep bees, pigeons, chickens and goats of his own starting around 5th grade and continuing until he graduated from High School. Andre went to Douglass Elementary, Nevin Platt Junior High School (now middle school) and graduated with honors from Fairview High School in 1996.

Seeking out opportunities in agriculture he won a full scholarship to Deep Springs College - a school with a huge BLM allotment and a cattle herd in the California high desert. He completed my studies as a double major in Music and Civil Engineering (Water Resource Management) at CU Boulder.

Andre is also working on agricultural and business projects in the US Africa and the Middle East. His Fair Trade businesses like Zambeezi and The Zambian Soap Company create income for over 1,000 families in Zambia.

In the farming off-season Andre is a frequent consultant and lecturer in the areas of regenerative Agriculture, the environment, and social development.

Casey Sheahan currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Simms Fishing LLC. Casey, a long-time outdoor industry veteran, came to Simms from his post as President of Keen Footwear. Prior to his 9 years with Patagonia and seven-year tenure at Kelty, he served as Vice-President of Marketing for Merrell Footwear and was Category Marketing Manager at Nike ACG from 1990-1994. In addition to his diverse footwear, apparel and equipment management background, Casey brings a breadth of skills to the fields of writing, marketing and sales. He has edited for several outdoor-inspired publications including Runner’s World, Marathoner and Nordic World and was editor and publisher of POWDER Magazine in the late 1980s. He is aligned with a number of environmental organizations and served as President of the Conservation Alliance, a non-profit organization of outdoor businesses whose membership dues support grassroots citizen-action groups and their efforts to protect wild and natural areas.  In the past, Casey casey has been the senior advisor to Backbone Media in Carbondale, Colorado, and now serves on the advisory boards of Keen Footwear, Johnson Outdoors, Outdoor Research, Vibram SPA, and the 5 Point Film Festival.

Kurt Smith is the Vice President of Strategic Innovation at Medtronic. Prior to his University position at CU boulder, Kurt spent 15 years in the high tech startup business starting and growing 5 businesses in this time. The greatest success story is what is now Medtronic Surgical Navigation where he revolutionized the operating room by enabling surgeons to actually see where they were in real-time on MR and CT images displayed in the OR. Kurt now lives in Boulder, CO where is continues his work with Medtronic while also finding time to get a climb in Eldorado Canyon. Please enjoy this interview with the funny, brilliant, and charismatic, Kurt Smith.  

Why I started this project and what to expect.