About ORC: Practical Solutions for Rangeland Management

At Open Range Consulting, we're deeply familiar with rangelands because we've actively worked them. More than just a GIS company, we are seasoned ranchers and land managers who have spent over 60 years balancing the dual goals of profitability and environmental stewardship. Our expertise is in managing land in a way that supports both economic success and ecological health, simultaneously.

Real Experience:

Our founder, Gregg, has been in charge of large ranches like Desert Land and Livestock and Humboldt. This background is what makes our Earth Sensed Technology (EST) work so well—it's built on real experience.

Our Technology:

With EST, we've created a set of tools that are easy to use and work. They're designed for the field, not just the lab, and are patented (US 9,824,276 B2) for their unique approach to tracking and assessing rangelands. Our technology is also internationally recognized in scientific journals, underscoring our commitment to scientific excellence and practical application

Diverse Clientele:

Our EST is trusted by a wide range of clients — from ranchers and land managers who live off the land, to government agencies, universities, the U.S. Department of Defense, and nonprofits. This broad adoption across sectors underlines the versatility and reliability of our tools.

Our Promise:

Open Range Consulting is committed to delivering solid, effective solutions that work for both the land and those who steward it. Whether you're overseeing sustainable land use or managing expansive rangelands, our tools are designed to make your job more effective and efficient.

Join the many who've stepped up their land management game with our help. Let's get to work.

Gregg Simonds

Gregg is the founder and leader of our team, bringing over 40 years of experience in ranch management and conservation across the Western U.S. Since beginning his career in 1974, he served as the manager of Deseret Land and Livestock from 1978 to 1996, where his work was recognized by the U.S. General Accounting Office for excellence in land and wildlife protection. A pioneer in sustainable land management, Gregg has contributed extensively to fire prevention, sage-grouse conservation, and the development of advanced land monitoring methods using remote sensing technologies. His expertise is reflected in numerous publications, including Sailing the Sagebrush Sea and peer-reviewed research on grazing for fuels management and sage-grouse habitat recovery.

Eric Sant

Eric is a co-partner of ORC and serves as the company's GIS, remote sensing, and image data processing specialist, as well as the field collection leader. He oversees all aspects of image acquisition, processing, quality control, and GIS integration to develop products that meet client needs. With a focus on creating geospatial solutions for land management, Eric has pioneered methods for rapidly and accurately assessing rangelands at landscape scales. He has been with ORC since 2001, contributing to numerous federal, state, and private industry projects with innovative remote sensing tools and methods.

Mike Anderson

Mike's experience includes data collections, data analysis and field work in remote areas on ATV’s for Open Range Consulting in Nevada, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, for the last seven eight. Employing and verifying the Piosphere predictive tool to cattle distributions. Creating detailed small resolution maps of riparian systems and their vegetational components. Modeling vegetation function groups across large areas of rangelands in the west. Training and implementation of AIM protocols. Undergraduate research in the BSU soils lab regarding cultivar diversity and litter inputs effect on soil carbon pool accumulations.

Mike’s responsibilities include collecting field data and modeling the vegetation functional groups. He is a crew mechanic and coder for the R statistical software package.  His professional experience includes field work and data collection throughout some of the most remote and rugged corners of many states in the west in rangelands over federal, state, and private working lands. This experience includes training and data collection for implementing AIM plots under the sage grouse habitat assessment framework (HAF). Examining the relationships between predictive and GPS cattle distributions. Riparian mapping in multiple types of stream systems. Designing and implementing sampling protocols to measure and map upland soil carbon pools and their distributions in both riparian and upland rangeland systems.

Anne Blackwood

Anne has worked for other various agencies including, Idaho Department of Environment Quality, Idaho Fish and Game, Round River Conservation Studies and Wildlife Conservation Society. Her field experience beyond Open Range Consulting includes season long stream health assessments (DEQ), Fish Hatchery and Ground Squirrel Studies (IDFG), Wolverine live trapping and monitoring (RRCS), Grizzly Bear Trapping and Habitat Assessment (WCS). She has First Aid CPR training and Backcountry Avalanche Training.

Anne is a field and geospatial technician. Her responsibilities include collecting field data, modeling the vegetation functional groups and quality control of overhead photography while in the field. Anne has worked for ORC for 5 years and has collected data all over the Western United States. She has extensive knowledge of the data collection process and can work highly effectively and efficiently in all types of conditions and terrain. 

Wayne Smith

Wayne has worked on a wide variety of wildlife research projects, ranging from amphibians to large mammals. Most of his work has focused on sage-grouse. This has included a graduate research project that studied the response of nesting and brood sage-grouse to grazing livestock. Wayne has contributed to other research projects which have included the effectiveness of translocating sage-grouse, artificial insemination of sage-grouse, and sage-grouse response to juniper removal. His past employers have been the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Utah State University.

Wayne’s responsibilities include collecting field data and modeling the vegetation functional groups. Wayne is ORC’s wildlife biologist. His responsibilities are to ensure the rest of the crew is calibrated on site selection and vegetation identification. Working with state and federal agencies he has assessed sage-grouse habitat conditions across the western US, allowing ORC to answer a number of habitat concerns for this sensitive species.

Nick Lizzette

Nick has experience working with the Bureau of Reclamation Water quality Upper Colorado Region collecting water samples for quality analyses/assessments on reservoirs. This field work was often done in remote, rugged location using very delicate and expensive equipment. Highly detailed data collection skills were required as well as a strong attention to safety procedures. Nick also has experience working with the U.S. Forest Service on the Uinta/Wasatch/Cache North Zone Trails Crew as a trail crew and wilderness solitude monitoring lead. He was required to spend full days alone in wilderness areas working on trails and conducting solitude monitoring. This work was highly physically strenuous, and at times dangerous. Navigational abilities, data collection abilities, and an attention to detail and safety procedures were all extremely important components of this job.

Nick is a data collection field technician as well as an image processing and GIS analyst. His responsibilities include gear preparation, field image acquisition, image processing, GIS analysis, and report writing. He has been employed with Open Range Consulting since 2021. He has done fieldwork for the company in six states across the west and has experience in image processing, photo classification, modeling, and report writing for various company projects throughout 2021-2024.

Grant Simonds

Grant is a seasoned GIS/Field Technician and Media Specialist with a lifetime of experience in the field, having been immersed in the natural environment from the earliest days of his life. Adept in navigating both the wilderness and the digital landscape, Grant brings a unique blend of practical field expertise and creative media sense to his work.

Raised on the front lines of fieldwork, Grant's unconventional education began with his fathers passion, where the fundamentals of GIS, fieldwork, and range management were a part of his upbringing. A testament to his deep-rooted connection with nature, Grant's infancy was spent strapped to an ATV, not just as a passenger, but as the youngest member of an operational crew.

Grant's entrepreneurial spirit manifested early when he launched his first business venture in video production. His ability to tell compelling stories through the lens has been an invaluable asset to the team, enriching their research and outreach.

Beyond his media talents, Grant is Wilderness First Aid certified, ensuring safety and resilience in remote environments. His commitment to his craft is further illustrated by his past as a professional cyclist, a discipline that honed his dedication, endurance, and strategic thinking—traits that are instrumental in his current role.