Michael Vance

Michael grew up on a small cattle and farming operation in Mississippi. He graduated from Mississippi State University with a B.S. in Animal Science and a minor in Ag Economics. During this time, he was helped by an internship with the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in which he worked with a large cattle operation from an economic perspective during the period of extremely high input costs of 2008. This really changed his perspective from traditional ranching to more of a grass based/efficiency minded type of producer/manager.

Following college, Michael moved back to Oklahoma to further his ranching experience while also pursuing an MBA from OK State University. During this time, he managed ranches in Northern Oklahoma that included commercial cow-calf, registered seedstock, and embryo recipient herds. Following grad school, Michael obtained his Oklahoma real estate license and began marketing ranch properties.

Currently, Michael serves as the VP of Agriculture for B29 investments in which he manages a portfolio of Investment ranches across 3 states while also serving as the managing partner for Stark Ranch, LLC. At the Stark, Michael is responsible for building a registered red angus herd that is raised and performs in a forage environment.  Maternal genetics are the focus of this cowherd with the goal being to raise bulls that work for the low-input producer.  The Stark Ranch also breeds and raises high quality commercial red angus females as well as pasture-raised and grass-fed beef.  The ranch encompasses over 4500 acres of owned and leased ground with the predominant goal to use cattle to increase the quality of native grass prairie along with building land value.