Tschetter Gains New Perspective on Hard Work, Sustainability During Month in Montana
7/18/2023 12:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Features
By Ben Metcalf
For many student-athletes, the offseason is a period of rest, recovery and preparation for the next academic and athletic year. However, one member of the Michigan men's basketball program used part of this offseason to advance his career in environmental science with an internship. From late April through May, University of Michigan forward Will Tschetter traveled to North Bridger Bison ranch near Bozeman, Mont., to support his Earth and Environmental Science major by completing hands-on sustainability projects and meeting environmental science professionals.
Tschetter first learned of the opportunity on the while in Greece on the Wolverines' summer tour of Europe in 2022. He connected with Katie Fraumann, a U-M alumni and former director of the men's basketball program. She put Tschetter in touch with Matt Skoglund, the founder and owner of North Bridger Bison.
Once Tschetter and Skoglund spoke, they quickly found that the partnership would be a good fit.
"We aligned my interest and thinking from my classwork and labs into what they needed," Tschetter said. "We just put our minds together and we said, 'This is some stuff that we can do in order to better the biodiversity and the overall ecosystem of the ranch.'"
The two decided that in the spring of 2023, Tschetter would join North Bridger Bison as the ranch's first intern.
Founded in 2018 by Skoglund and his wife, Sarah, North Bridger Bison is a regenerative bison ranch located in the Shields Valley in southwest Montana. The ranch focuses on holistic management and regenerative agriculture, a philosophy that entails farming within the existing environment instead of using chemicals, excessive tillage or other harmful practices that can harm natural habitats.
Tschetter spent his childhood on a dairy farm in Stewartville, Minn., where he took a particular interest in freshwater ecosystems. "I grew up on a river in our backyard," he said. "The county I lived in had done a bunch of restoration projects with our river with buffer zones, which is super cool. I've always just kind of been around (fresh water)."
This passion inspired Tschetter to take on two projects that helped rebuild and maintain North Bridger Bison's wetlands. First, he created a beaver mimicry structure, which resembles a beaver dam and moderates the flow of streams to retain water on the ranch.
"Out here in the arid west, water is unbelievably important," Skoglund said. "And beavers, beaver dams and beaver ponds are a way to hold more water, keep more water on the ranch and ultimately mitigate the impacts of climate change and a drier landscape going forward."
Tschetter's beaver mimicry structure has shown promising early results.
"I've already gotten pictures from Matt (Skoglund)," Tschetter said. "It's nuts, so much water has been retained. It's neon green, a couple of ducks are nesting there... It's great to just be able to see it all kind of play into each other."
Skoglund also has been pleased with the effectiveness of Tschetter's structure.
"Will's beaver mimicry project was a huge success," Skoglund said. "It's only gotten stronger since Will left and it's just doing a great job of slowing the water down and having the ranch absorb more water."
For his second project, Tschetter led a stream bed restoration, where he focused on controlling erosion caused by grazing bison.
"It was Will's idea to transplant some cattails in there from a pond on the ranch, and those cattails are growing beautifully," Skoglund said. "We already see improvement, which is wonderful."
Overall, Tschetter was happy to see his work in the classroom translate to real-world experience on the ranch.
"It was super interesting and fed into all the stuff that I learned in the classroom," he said. "To actually be able to do hands-on stuff and see it -- it's just lightbulb moment after lightbulb moment knowing that this stuff really does apply, and you can see a direct correlation."
Tschetter also gained a new perspective surrounding the meaning of hard work while immersed within a community of ranchers. While Tschetter and his teammates work hard in the gym and the weight room, he found that life on a 1,200-acre ranch presented newer, more demanding challenges.
"We don't have to worry about working thousands of acres of land, making sure the cows or bison or whatever livestock are always fed, hoping for rain, being super stressed," he said. "What we do is physically intensive or physically hard, but I would say that's actual hard work, what (ranchers) are doing out there."
Additionally, Tschetter noticed the importance of harvesting meat from sustainable sources. As a regenerative farm, North Bridger Bison places a strong emphasis on raising livestock in sync with its natural ecosystem. Tschetter said that despite claims of plant-based diets being best for the environment, sustainably sourced meat can be safer for the planet long term.
"At the end of the day, there's no such thing as a bloodless diet. No matter what, if you're going to harvest, for instance, on a large scale, wheat, you're having to rip out an entire ecosystem," Tschetter explained. "Whereas if you're farming meat like North Bridger Bison does -- promoting biodiversity, having bison on the landscape that they were meant to be on, coexisting nature with the animal that you're raising -- that's doing more for the Earth than actually (just) eating plants."
Tschetter had the opportunity to learn about a new career path that suits his passion for sustainable farming practices while speaking with two of North Bridger Bison's soil consultants. He found that consultants play an important role in ensuring that conservation efforts are genuine and effective. Tschetter recognizes that while most farms or companies are publicly promoting environmentalism, there may be ulterior motives at play. "You see such a push for environmentalism inside of the corporate world and a lot of times it can be greenwashed… they're just doing it to try to gain more votes, more buyers, more stuff like that," he said.
As a soil consultant, Tschetter would ensure that businesses fulfill promises and make progress toward more sustainable practices.
"It was a super interesting career path, and seemed like something that I could totally see myself doing," Tschetter said.
In addition to conservation projects, Tschetter also was able to help the Skoglund family assemble a basketball hoop on the ranch. Skoglund had ordered a rim for his son, Otto, but did not have the opportunity to set it up. When Tschetter arrived, he offered to help Skoglund hang the rim on the side of a barn.
"It turned out to absolutely be a two-person job. Needless to say, when it comes to basketball hoops, Will Tschetter is an expert. He led the charge in taking measurements, designing how we should do it and where we should put it," Skoglund said. "The two of us put it up and it worked great and our son ... he's shooting baskets out there constantly."
Perhaps more important than the projects he completed, Tschetter brought great energy and enthusiasm to North Bridger Bison that did not go unnoticed. Skoglund made sure to express his appreciation for Tschetter and the help that he offered around the ranch.
"We truly and sincerely loved having Will here," Skoglund said. "He's just an unbelievable person with an amazingly bright future and we can't wait to see what he does both on and off the court in the years ahead."
Back in Ann Arbor, Tschetter will begin his third year studying Earth and Environmental Science with a better understanding of how his classwork applies in the field, and his passion for the environment has already extended beyond the classroom. Since returning from Montana, Tschetter has started a garden with Janine Howard, wife of U-M men's basketball head coach Juwan Howard.
In addition to preparing for the upcoming season, Tschetter will continue to pursue his passion for environmental science and help those around him in the process.
