About Us

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  Both Joni and I grew up in the Lac La Biche, Alberta area coming from small mixed agricultural backgrounds. Having a strong passion for the lifestyle and appreciating how privileged we were to have grown up learning the life lessons associated with farm life. It was always a goal to raise our children in the same environment someday given the opportunity. After high school and post secondary education, Joni and I entered into a career of Aviation. Working in the Aviation industry as a newly married couple we found ourselves living and working at the “end of the road” so to speak in northern towns, where we both grew up and started our careers, fell in love and began our family. In 2008 an opportunity presented itself to move to High Level, Alberta to manage a small airline for a group of investors specializing in suppling Air Ambulance services and connecting remote communities to essential supplies and services. The airline had 5 aircraft and 18 staff members at the time and had bases in High Level and Fort Vermillion Alberta.

  Everyone said we were crazy to move eight hours away from our nearest family to live in such a Northern community with our four-year-old son Connor, two-year-old daughter Elizabeth and new born daughter Daphney. We will be forever grateful for the opportunity to grow our family in a remote community full of extraordinary people as we became an incredibly tight nit family. We enjoyed raising our family with many unforgettable experiences on the family trapline as most spare moments were spent either building our cabin, swimming, fishing, hunting and of course trapping. 

  We worked tirelessly as a family with many sacrifices to continue and grow the airline expanding rapidly and steady to 2017 when we where awarded a contract to supply air ambulance fix wing aircraft through out the province of Alberta under a Master Service Agreement with Alberta Health Services. No longer able to manage the company from up north we relocated to the greater Edmonton area to allow more centralized access to the now 22 aircraft and 135 employees. 

  Coming as a shock to our close family with the sudden change of life style Joni and I saw the need to get the kids involved in activities that they did not have access to up north to help the transition. Although many of these activities had short term success there still seemed to be a void in everyone’s lives. On a cool November day in 2018, after breakfast I offered to take the family to Farm Fair in Edmonton to see the animals and pass the day together. As we were walking through the isles admiring the cattle, I saw the inspiration not only my kids were showing but the many other kids involved with keeping their strings looking their best. As we were walking through the Hereford section, I found a sale  Brochure laying on the ground for the First Choice Heifer Sale in Camrose in two weeks time. We attended the sale and purchased our first four purebred Hereford heifer calves. 

  The results were contagious and an immediate change was noted as the family now had a common goal to raise purebred cattle and with in 30 days from purchasing our first animals, we now had a small heard of 40 heifer calves. That summer we fenced and prepared three quarters of grazing on the original family farm just south of Lac La Biche where our great grand parents settled when coming to Canada from Ukraine in the early 1900’s. Having cows graze the very farm that our great grandparents and grandparents farmed gave an unbelievable connection to our heritage, serving as a reminder of where we came from and how anything was possible with enough passion and hard work. We continued to grow the herd calving out 60 purebred Hereford cows our first year now breeding 150 cows annually. 

Why Herefords? Studying the many different breeds as we were entering the beef seedstock industry we had the most interest and excitement for the Hereford breed for the normal reasons of how docile, efficient and highly maternal they can be. However, seeing how much the breed had progressed from “Your Grandpa’s Hereford” to present day and how much room was still available for improvement on things like carcass and marketing the breed as a viable cross for almost anything really had us excited. Almost everyone understands perfection in terms of phenotypes and we all have a trained eye for judging the best cattle to move our programs forward although genotypes tend to be overlooked by some people when choosing their next herd sires or foundation females. Our program at Skyvirtu Ranch Inc focusses on bringing the best phenotypes and genotypes together for a balanced animal resulting in above breed average traits across the EPD spectrum. Working together with industry and fellow ranchers to educate the advantages of using balanced seedstock in programs will promote the sustainability and success of our Hereford breed in the industry for future generations. 

  Skyvirtu Ranch Inc is a family run ranch that each of us holds a slightly different passion allowing for a rounded success. We have all heard the expression “do something you love, and you will never work a day in your life”.   Although we are relatively new to the seedstock industry we look forward to future relationships offering balanced seedstock helping programs move their programs forward.