Gulch Team
Meet the Gulch Team
The Gulch Environmental Foundation team is a collaboration of business leaders, environmental scientists, conversationalists, and farmers. Their collective experiences offer unique perspectives and insights into addressing how regenerative farming and soil heath can combat climate change.
Angel Lance
Founder
Angel Lance is a visionary founder and CEO, with an impressive track record of creating and leading successful companies that solve big problems. In over two decades of serial-entrepreneurship, she has launched and scaled four self-funded, profitable private enterprises from the ground up, demonstrating an unparalleled business acumen, and commitment to living her passion for environmental stewardship.
Angel is the founder of Motive Power, 10/6 Professional Services, and the National Public Utilities Council, organizations that expedite the clean energy transition, and manage billions of dollars of initiatives in Fortune 100 companies across a variety of industry verticals. At the heart of Angel’s success lies pragmatism; she was determined to start a foundation that did what is said it was going to do and communicated openly about its financials and impact. Putting her own money where her mouth is, she figured out that by signing up for all administration costs of the foundation personally, she could remove the tension of what foundation typically need to keep to themselves and be able to report accurately on impact related activities.
Thus the Gulch Foundation was born.
Angel’s book, Seeing Green: How to Save the Planet and Profit From Sustainability, is available from Forbes Books, online and wherever books are sold.
Cheyenne Gaff
Special Projects & Event Manger
Cheyenne Gaff is a proud native of Nash, Oklahoma, with deep roots as a 3rd generation agriculturalist. Growing up in rural Oklahoma, she developed a passion for agriculture early on, working alongside her family on a commercial cow/calf operation. Her love for the land and livestock was nurtured through active participation in 4-H and FFA programs, where she earned the prestigious American FFA Degree, the highest honor an FFA member can achieve.
Cheyenne’s journey in agriculture continued as she judged livestock at Northern Oklahoma College, honing her skills and expanding her knowledge. She then pursued a degree in animal science at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, graduating in 2021. After graduation, she spent three years as the County Extension Director for Oklahoma State University, where she was dedicated to agriculture education and 4-H and youth development, helping to guide the next generation of agricultural leaders.
When not working on the farm, Cheyenne enjoys the outdoors, whether it’s hunting, fishing, or simply soaking in rural life. Farming is more than a profession for her; it’s a way of life that she is deeply committed to, and she looks forward to continuing to build her agricultural legacy.
Kellan Hostetler
Farm Manager
Kellan Hostetler is a 5th generation farmer and rancher, and a full-time owner operator on his own family farm/ranch, which is neighbors with Rainmaker Farm. He combines that hands-on knowledge with a degree in Agribusiness from Oklahoma State University and has become an invaluable member of our team. He has a wide variety of skills and experience, and if he can’t do something himself, he always knows someone who can. Kellan leads land management activities at Rainmaker, ranging from prescribed burning to planting. He is also the Herd Manager when we use prescriptive grazing in our grassland area. He is always thinking outside of the box, applying his conventional farming background to the novel farming methods we try at the Rainmaker. Kellan is a master at finding solutions, a way to make things happen within the overall goals of the project, always with an eye to also making this a successful business. He is also an exceptional educator, giving talks to school groups and other visitors to Rainmaker about farming and ranching.
Dr. Aviva Rossi
Research Advisor
Dr. Aviva Rossi is an ecologist with over 20 years of work experience in wildlife ecology, vegetation management, and habitat restoration. She has worked within non-profit organizations, government, private companies, and academia. Her general research interests include biogeography, natural history, mammalogy, climate change, conservation, and land regeneration. Dr. Rossi’s recent projects have quantified the natural history of small mammals, including the niche space, resource selection, and modeled distributions to better understand how species are likely to respond to climate change. Her current work is focused on tracking changes to soil and wildlife biodiversity trends during regenerative agriculture transitions.
As an educator, Dr. Rossi emphasizes experiential learning. She has been teaching at the university-level for a decade, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, including designing and leading field courses. She is looking forward to the opportunity to involve local students in Gulch Foundation projects, including those at Rainmaker Farm.
Aviva was born on a small farm and got her hands in the ground early planting and raising food with her family. Her foundational knowledge of ecology started with her understanding of our inextricable ties to the complex food web on earth. As a mother of two children, Aviva feels strongly about working on projects that are making progress towards a sustainable future. At the Gulch she is grateful to be working towards a more stable climate future, thriving natural resources, and happy well-fed human beings.
Marty Williams
Agriculture Advisor
Recipient of the 2023 Leopold Conservation Award, Marty Williams is a 7th generation Oklahoma farmer with a lifetime of experience in farming and ranching, including his own diverse no-till farming operation centered around conservation of our natural resources. He brings a broad range of agricultural expertise to The Gulch that is crucial for the success of our regenerative agriculture projects. He provides us with valuable advice about soil science and no-till, as well as being an exceptional public speaker about soil science principles at our public events.
Marty holds a Bachelor of Science in Plant and Soil Sciences from Oklahoma State University. During his formal education, he found his passion for making farms better to pass on to the next generation, he wanted to conserve the soil and to make a difference. He has been successful in doing so, and was recognized by Oklahoma State University’s Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources with the Master Agronomist Award (2015), the most prestigious presented by the Division. It recognizes his active participation in education and public service in soil conservation and other related fields. He was also recognized by The Progressive Farmer as one of America’s Best Young Farmers and Ranchers. Marty is the president of the Noble County Conservation District, the local board that implements federal and state soil and water conservation practices with local producers.
His ambition and love for agriculture keeps him both locally and nationally striving to better the agriculture industry, and he prioritizes quality, conservation, character, relationships, and integrity.
Marty co-manages his own farm with his wife Crystal, and their two children. The Oklahoma Farm Bureau recognized the work of this dedicated family and awarded Marty and Crystal with the Young Farmers and Ranchers Achievement Award.
You can learn more about Marty, his abundant awards and recognitions for both farming and conservation, and his own farm he co-manages with his wife Crystal, at frontierfarmsok.com.