Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
A career in business reporting turns up many unusual ideas, but in 30 years I’ve never seen anything like Fortitude Ranch.
On a visit last summer to its central Wisconsin location, which I had to swear to keep secret, I found the ultimate in pandemic-era concepts: a members-only survival community equipped to ride out any type of disaster and long-term loss of law and order. “Prepare for the worst but enjoy the present,” is their motto.
“I’ve been a prepper for a long time but figured out a decade ago I’m not going to survive on my own,” said Drew Miller, CEO and founder of Fortitude Ranch, who earned a doctorate from Harvard and is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
Miller seems oddly cheery as he ticks off all the disasters coming our way: Avian flu, meteor strikes, nanotechnology blow-ups or artificial intelligence gone rogue. “You can’t do it by yourself. If you’re a lone wolf, and especially if you’ve stockpiled a lot of food, a marauder comes, you’re going to get killed.”
Members will pay a few thousand dollars per person per year and they’ll store personal items and weapons on site — one AR-15-style rifle each is recommended. Plus — don’t forget your prescriptions, the operating manual says in one of many examples of mixing the banal and the existential.
In peace time, members can use the camps for outdoor retreats. In a disaster, they’ll have to serve guard duty, forage for food and shoot at intruders. Compounds have features with dual purposes, like a gazebo in the West Virginia Fortitude Ranch. “It’s wine and cheese, in good times,” Miller explained. “But in bad times, we can shoot down from that gazebo.”
Even in the apocalypse, things will normalize. “We’ll have movie nights and eventually we’ll get to the point where we’ll have some good times,” Miller says.
Five compounds were operating as of last summer, with a sixth in the works, and Miller said demand was so high he began offering franchises. His goal is to have enough compounds so every member is only one gas tank away.
I’ve never interviewed anyone with a world view like Miller’s, nor do I share it. An eternal optimist, I believe entrepreneurs like those we cover in Upsize will innovate our way out of future disasters. I also believe I’d rather go out enjoying wine and a meal with good friends, like the “regular” people in the movie “Don’t Look Up,” rather than escaping into space millions of years into the future (or is it the past?) with the elites, only to be eaten instantly upon emerging naked upon landing (Sorry, I should have said spoiler alert).
But as always when I encounter entrepreneurs with what seem like crazy ideas, I appreciate a different point of view, like the Fortitude Ranchers’. Maybe it does make sense to reserve a place in that survivalist compound, store your weapons and prescriptions, take shooting practice and prepare to hunker down, waiting out nuclear winter for years with movie nights.
There’s only one way to find out who’s right. Obviously, if it’s Miller, you won’t be hearing it from me.
