Grant Weber spent 21 years in the Air Force — civil engineering, six deployments, building and tearing down forward operating bases with the Army and Marines. When he came home to Ritzville, Washington, the farm his family built was still there. So was the question of what came next.

Today, Grant manages Vets on the Farm, an internship program in Eastern Washington that has run nearly 300 veterans through a hands-on, cradle-to-grave growing operation — from greenhouse seed starts and farm stands to restaurant deliveries. The program runs on a simple idea that Grant highlights:

“You learn more in between the rows of the corn or of the lettuce than you would if you were sitting around a table at the VA.”

In this episode, we get into:

• How Vets on the Farm became a SkillBridge-approved program drawing veterans from across the country
• Why the military-to-civilian transition can be harder than most people tell you, and
• What it really takes to build a veteran ag nonprofit when the funding is never certain

Enjoy!

Today's guests are Barry Taylor and Emma Cashman — the co-founders of the Land At Home Project, a nonprofit built on the simple but evidence-backed premise that veterans need a renewed sense of purpose and America needs new farmers and ranchers.

Barry grew up on a small ranch in rural southeastern Arizona — the kind of place where summers meant fence work and cattle, the kind of work you couldn’t wait to leave until you were old enough to realize what it imparted in you. His career took him through emergency medicine, nursing, and eventually hospital administration before landing him in a civilian consulting role with Navy Medicine Western Region.

Emma grew up in Toronto and a very early age, fell in love with horses. She spent much of her early childhood learning horsemanship before moving to Arizona when she was in college. While finishing her undergraduate degree in nursing, she met her husband who was an active duty airman in the Air Force. She went on to get her master's degree in public health before spending years working across flight medicine and public health at military bases in Italy and San Diego, then ultimately joining Barry at Nav Med West. There, the two of them started connecting the dots between military service and agriculture over coffee while both working as infection prevention and control nurses.

What they landed on is something Emma articulates in a way I’ve never heard described before:

"Agriculture is full of these imperatives — you must get up to feed the animals, there's just no way around that. Coming from a very structured life in the military, where there are lots of things that you must do, and then going to the free-for-all of civilian life can be very challenging. Having an occupation that's full of these imperatives is helpful — it gives structure in a non-rigid way."

In this episode, I want you to listen for a few key themes:

1. Emma's expert review of the peer-reviewed, evidence-based case for why agriculture and military service are a documented fit — not just intuition, but data;
2. How Land At Home's three-part model of education, internship, and mentorship was built by studying what other programs were missing; and
3. A conversation about the One Health framework — and why food security, veteran mental health, and rural community revitalization could actually be the same problem wearing three different hats.

Enjoy!

From Marine Corps logistician to champion of regenerative agriculture — Brian Pugh’s journey is one you don’t want to miss.

In this conversation, Brian shares how family gardens, his time in Okinawa’s Blue Zone, and a growing concern for food as medicine led him to leave the service and dive headfirst into healing our food system from the soil up.

He’s now leading the Service to Soil program at Carnation Farms, a SkillBridge initiative helping transitioning veterans gain hands-on experience in regenerative farming, crops, livestock, and building community in ag.

If you’re a veteran curious about farming, interested in soil health, or just love stories of purpose-driven transitions — this one’s for you.

Listen now to hear:

• Why regenerative ag is critical for national security & veteran transitions
• How one farm is creating real pathways for the next generation of veteran farmers
• Breadcrumbs that led Brian from logistics to leading Soil Stewards

Enjoy!

#carnationfarms #ServiceToSoil #VetsInAg #RegenerativeAgriculture #VeteranFarmers #SkillBridge #FoodAsMedicine #MilitaryToFarm #SoilHealth