Greg Putnam spent nine years of active duty as a US Navy SEAL stationed out of Hawaii before making the decision to return to the Rocky Mountains with his family. After his time in the service, he dabbled in the private sector as the business manager of Ascent Vision before changing course and setting in motion something he’d been toying with for years - owning and operating a cattle ranch in Montana. In 2020, amidst the global pandemic, Putnam partnered with a fellow veteran and friend, Tim Sheehy, to make this vision a reality. Connecting three different properties nestled at the foot of the Little Belt Mountains in central Montana, they founded Little Belt Cattle Company together. With the help and mentorship of some seasoned Montana cattle ranchers, they made it through the winter and just finished their first calving season. Veteran-owned and run by the two families, LBCC sits on about 9,000 acres. The two families are set on making the operation as sustainable as possible, implementing regenerative agriculture practices whenever possible, including soil and grass restoration, a 12-month grazing plan that prioritizes the health of the pastures, and a calving schedule that aligns closely with nature. Working dogs and horses are used to move the cattle as often as possible in place of 4-wheelers, reducing the overall amount of stress on the cattle, which leads to higher-quality meat. Little Belt Cattle Co: https://littlebeltcattleco.com/ Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee Company https://blackriflecoffee.com Fabric by Gerber Life: https://meetfabric.com/clearedhot
Chapter 1: Who is Greg Putnam and what is his background?
Good morning, everybody. I hope you all had a great weekend. My guest today is Greg Putnam. He's a former Navy SEAL. and current owner of Little Belt Cattle Company, Cattle Co., north of Bozeman, Montana. Now, you might ask yourself, did they call it Little Belt because he's so tiny? No, they didn't. Although he is very wee, if you know what I mean.
They called it that because that's the mountain range that's right there. Greg has been on before. God damn. So he, his career... mostly was in the SDVs, Seal Delivery Vehicles. And I'm gonna be honest with you, they terrified me because I didn't really know what they did other than spend an ungodly amount of time in the water, far longer than I would ever wanna spend.
So anytime that I've ever seen one, and there's only been one time that I've seen it for real, I went in the other direction because I just didn't wanna get put inside of it. He opens with a story about perhaps exactly why that is the case. So, episode 381 with former Navy SEAL, current businessman, Greg Putnam. Now, before we dive in, let me pay the bills.
Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. That's right. You know they've been a part of this podcast for years now. They helped me bring this podcast to everyone for free. I've been a fan of the brand, a part of the brand for quite some time now. I own one of their coffee shops up here in Montana, currently the only one in Montana. And it's been a hell of a ride.
But today, let's talk about their website. So let's head over there right now. First thing I'm looking at, Elixir. I don't know how to say this. Vitae? Vitae? I don't know. Its origin is from Mexico. The region is... I'm not even going to try to say that. I feel like I know how to say that, but I'm not going to embarrass myself further.
This is an example of one of the bags of coffee that you can get if you join the ECS, the exclusive coffee subscription. It's going to be one bag a month. Now, if that's not enough for you, don't worry. I just scroll down here. All these other bags, you can get those on the regular coffee subscription as well. You don't have to limit yourself to just ECS.
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They also have energy drinks, which I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a fan of energy drinks, but we sell these in the coffee shop and they are flying. So for people who like energy drinks, I highly recommend you check them out. Four flavors, Black Rifle energy that comes in Freedom Punch, Wild Frost. Ranger Berry and Project Mango. Really a smattering there, covering a lot of it.
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Chapter 2: What led Greg to start Little Belt Cattle Company?
What was the, the narrative I remember hearing was, He essentially bought into your business so he could say he was a Montanan, right? That's the angle they took? Yeah, they took a couple angles there. But that one directly wrapped in Little Belt, which is... Because I remember, do you remember the conversation? You're like, how do I attack these motherfuckers?
Yeah, because every party wants to be like, how do you come back? And then you have to be... No, and how do you combat a million dollars a week? And then here's what happens is... With two million. Yeah, well, if you don't have any money, it's hard to do that, right? I'm just giving you advice should you have too many.
And then what you start to learn as you show a little tactical patience is that they only keep pressing into the areas where they're starting to get traction. The pain points. Exactly. And so the... the less life you breathe back into it, the quicker, you know, it, it goes away. So the angle they took was exactly what you said. And then they hadn't really attacked the business directly.
And then they came out with an ad. And, and again, you're not like talking about them finding real, like, like varsity level people in any of these industries. Right. So they found some dipshit guy and he came out. You probably remember anybody in Montana remembers that. And they basically were like, like, At my ranch, like I have cattle and I grow alfalfa.
Tim Sheehy's ranch and company sells pink hoodies and little coffee cups. And we were like, yeah, we do.
And- In addition to the other things.
Correct. And they didn't hit on any of that. They didn't hit on the fact that like the business and the company that we had built and the ranch that we've built and was like- It wasn't even close comparison to, to this guy. Like I can't even think of a good example of this guy that they drug up, um, you know, to, to push their message.
Ultimately that message felt pretty flat because a lot of people are in Montana were like, Oh, so that means if I, you know, if I bought a business or start new in a business, um, I mean, The ranching and agriculture industry is one of the only industries I've seen where there's this huge amount of emphasis put on how many generations before you did it.
And if you don't have that, there's kind of a...
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Chapter 3: How does Greg view the political landscape in Montana?
you want to go on this? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'm like, all right. And this was an SDV qualified guy. He's been through SDV school. Okay. And, uh, was he jocked up yet? No, we were no, no, no. We're still at, at the, uh, like the high bay. Okay. This is kind of midday and, and people knew the closer it got to launch time, the grumpier everybody got. And I, we should explain why.
Give me a broad range of dive time that you might.
Oh, you could enact like a, um, I would say like a, like a no worries, not even think about it would be somewhere around like four to six hours, six hours and above. You'd be like, Oh, but a four hour dive could quickly become a six, seven hour dive. And these were just, you know, this wasn't once in a while, this was pretty regular.
And so for people who have no understanding of that, we'll call it six hours. Yeah. go sit in a warm pool underwater on an open circuit rig for six hours and let me know how much you enjoyed that.
Yeah. And then make the pool super cold and cram yourself into like a bathtub with a couple of your friends, turn off all the lights and sit there and don't talk, don't move. And for six.
Yeah.
Like if you think about that, like that's like driving, you know, from.
That's going to be, that's more time than it will take you to get home in Bozeman.
absolutely. And under what I was trying to, cause my, my wife has the kids, like they went on spring break today. And my one daughter yesterday was like, we're going to be in the car for seven. And I was like seven hours. Imagine that car flooded with icy cold water and you and your sisters crammed in the back in the dark. Don't tell me about seven hours, you know? And, uh,
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Tim Sheehy face during his campaign?
It was a very pleasant ride to be honest. And it was as spacious as it gets, but that, uh, was like a fair reminder of just how bad that command, how challenging it was. What happened to that guy? Well, let's just say this. He was not our troop commander any longer. It wasn't great. Let's just say that. He did have to talk to the group, which wasn't great.
And then meaning like the group of you guys, everybody, um, he, he got some feedback from, from everybody. And then he, he left the command not too long after that, from what I recall. And I'm not sure what he did after that.
Probably forced our Admiral.
Probably, probably. But that was like one of those times where I'd seen new guys, like everybody else wanted to do exactly what he did.
That speaks though. To the reality of the job.
Correct.
Where's that in the movies?
No, no. When you are putting a dry suit on and a diaper, you don't see that in the SEAL movies.
No. And the selection program course, crucible, whatever you want to call it, is supposed to weed out anybody that is going to crack and quit. It was... Physically or physiologically?
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Chapter 5: What insights does Greg have on election cycles?
I just saw a, uh, you know, like a ad or something for that. And I saw the little guy in the boat. I was like, Oh, I wonder what that is. Yeah.
But I didn't know what the, they were down there doing. And I didn't even know that they did that with humans. And I don't know why I didn't guess that, but the depths were ungodly. Yeah. I can't, it gets, he gets snagged and somehow, and they have a five minute bottle autumn, I guess. Yeah.
So I can't get into too much detail. I'm going to figure out a way to talk about it. Just tell us the secrets. Tell us the secrets of the depths, Greg. So, yes, there's people that go down for a long duration. And then part of it is when they come back up.
We'll call it when they get repatriated.
Correct. And then, you know, some of them go down. they come up to the surface and then they'll go almost into like a recompression chamber for a long time to like run the table. Or, um, they're basically brought up in a way that, uh, that does that, but it can be, I'm talking like, this isn't like a couple hours.
No, these guys, these are weeks. These guys were getting pressed. I know what you're talking about. There's a way that they're bringing them up from the pressure that they were at, at the bottom and they're getting them onto the vessel. And then they're living inside of that chamber into the chamber. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
So there's no, like they were down saturated enough that they, cause I've seen that where they can make the walk. Some hard hat divers do that, but I think that's like a, like a single dive. They're ripping their shit off, diving into the chamber, almost literally. This, and I don't know how they do it. They might bring them up from the bell and the bell might itself connect to it.
That's what it is. But they are going from pressure into pressure and then over weeks being brought back up to the surface.
Yeah. Or- Um, from what I understand about it, the, the bell can be brought up in a particular way that that's happening. Yeah. So, um, but that saturation thing is for real. And fuck that. You want to know another thing about it? Yes. Which would be not good for me. I know, uh, I talked to some people that had, had done that.
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Chapter 6: What are the impacts of negative campaigning?
Makes sense.
And so for us, we do a grass-fed grain finish program. And so we were partnered in a feed yard in Billings. And so those cattle go into there, get finished on grain, and then we're processing those and then we're doing all the distribution. So we work with a bunch of restaurants locally. And then we also have an online presence now that people can just go on and order.
We actually just finished up doing a deal with Black Rifle with... They've got a bunch of like partner folks at their subscription.
Oh, the coffee club, the coffee club.
So we're working with them now. So if you're a black rifle coffee club subscriber, you can find a little bell cattle company on there. There's a discount code specifically for those guys that are subscribers and they can go on an order and catch discount and get a hundred percent Montana beef.
Where's your guys' rants in relationship to Bozeman? My son now goes to MSU.
Okay. We're 90 miles Northeast of Bozeman.
Is that up by like white sulfur?
It is. We're east of white sulfur and west of Harlowton.
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