The Need to Build…
1998 A Wake-Up Call
I was the youngest son with big plans… until Hodgkin’s Lymphoma stopped me cold. There’s no neat answer to “why,” but growing up where herbicides touched everything, my gut has never let that go. Another kid from our tiny town ended up with the same cancer in the same arm. What are the odds? The experience rewired me: if you want different outcomes, you build a different food system.
2000 Wallace Farms
Around the family table, our conversations shifted from “what’s for dinner” to what our dinner was fed. We started Wallace Farms, learning from a regenerative farmer friend and sharing grass-fed beef with families in Chicago and beyond. Slow at first; real the whole way.
2003 The Mountains, The Kitchen
Corporate life in Chicago wasn’t it. The Rockies called; I answered..and went through traditional French culinary training. I didn’t want the chef’s life; I wanted to fix the source. Food isn’t just cooked; it’s grown, stewarded, respected.
2005 A Blank Field Becomes a Farm
Back in Iowa, my dad joked: “Move to the old family ground.” It was 160 acres of nothing; no house, no fence, no utilities. Perfect. We planted trees, ran power and water, set posts, built freezers and a shop with a loft. Over the next 15 years we raised beef, eggs, chickens, turkeys, and lamb, delivering month after month to families across Iowa and Chicago. A blank field turned into a living food system.
2010 Nick’s Sticks
On the road all the time, I needed real food I could eat with one hand. The market was thin, so we made our own. We believe we were among the first “no-sugar” snack sticks out there, and they took off: stores, direct customers, Amazon. Timing met truth.
2013 The Crash
A freak snowmobile accident nearly ended me. Helicopter, hospital, and five weeks learning to walk again, with lingering paralysis. It should’ve slowed me down. It didn’t. It clarified everything. When you get a second chance, you build.
2020 → 2022 99 Counties
For two decades I beat the drum for organic and regenerative farming. The question: how do you scale it? Answer: one county at a time. That vision became 99 Counties, funded and launched in 2022. An infrastructure play to connect farms and families at scale.
2024 One Acre
Iowa doesn’t need more chemicals. It needs real food; grown with care, close to home. So I’m back to the simplest, most radical idea: What can one acre do? Let’s find out together. One acre at a time. One family at a time. One future worth eating for.
Join the Build
If you believe soil is the soul and food is the fastest way to wake people up, you’re in the right place. Follow the journey, share the mission, and help us prove what one acre can become.