Stanford University's 'The Bill Lane Center for the American West' Internship
Bill Lane Center for the American West Summer Internship – This 10-week internship, supported by the Bill Lane Center at Stanford University, provides Stanford students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in a variety of elements of regenerative ranching. The 2025 application is closed and we are currently hiring!
Internship Information
Internship Overview
This internship will be a hybrid of ranch work and an individual project. To understand what regenerative ranching is, why we do it and the incredible potential of adaptive management, it is critical to be a part of the team and the day-to-day land and animal management. This work will include learning how to run summer ditch irrigation across the ranch; building polywire fence and moving cattle (on foot and atvs); assisting with livestock health issues; repairing and building infrastructure such as permanent fence, irrigation ditches, corrals and outbuildings; assisting in monitoring and management of pastures including scoring the grazing impact, documenting grazing moves and paddock design, assisting with ecological monitoring photo points, species lists, and invasive weed management.
Duties and Opportunities
This ranch work will inform the individual project which will consist of helping Redwing Ranch tell its story through social media, our website, and educational marketing materials. The audience is people who want to get into ranching but may have little to no experience, individuals who want to find better ways to ranch, demographics who are underrepresented in ranching, and those who love inspiring stories of change. We are in the early stages of building an educational program that will offer 1-3 day in-person and virtual workshops sharing methods we have developed and lessons we have learned as we built a new business based on regenerative principles.
Past Interns at Redwing Ranch
2024 - Gibson Holmes
Ranch Ecological & Infrastructure Monitoring Intern
Reflections from Gibson During His Summer Internship
"My internship at Redwing Ranch has exposed me to high-caliber work with professionals leading the shift to regenerative agriculture in cattle ranching. Using science-driven data solutions on pastures and irrigation networks, I found my place at the intersection between agriculture and technology. Implementing sustainable practices in a climate-conscious world optimizes outcomes for both the environmental and ranchers.
​
I create datasets at Redwing Ranch to produce accurate water use records. My work contributes to securing the ranch's rights to this precious natrual resource by mapping and analyzing the ditch irrigation infrastructure and ecological productivity. Using GIS data collection on ESRI platforms, I meticulously mapped miles of ditches and recorded their environment. Inputting this data into ArcGIS Pro, I identified opportunities to optimize irrigation water use within the existing system. My project played a key role in prioritizing repairs to optimize irrigation water use within the existing system. My project played a key role in prioritzing repairs, investment, and contributing to Redwing's efforts to improve irrigation water usage, plant species diversity, and cattle health, understanding the weight of these decisions on the ranch's future. My work has created a geospatial framework to cement our irrigation infrastructure's scale and efficiency."