Meet the Grit Team
Bryan Welch, Publisher
Publisher Bryan Welch raises organic, grass-fed cattle, sheep and goats on his 50-acre farm near Lawrence, Kansas, and also runs Ogden Publications, Inc., which publishes GRIT and 13 other magazines in the sustainable-lifestyle, rural-lifestyle and collectible categories. Our sister publications include Mother Earth News, Natural Home, Utne Reader, Motorcycle Classics and Farm Collector.
Bryan grew up in New Mexico and Colorado, received his B.A. at the University of Denver and a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government where he studied Media Policy and Media Management. What he loves about farming is that “every single day, I’m directly in touch with the miraculous systems that give us life.”
K.C. Compton, Editor in Chief
My upbringing in rural Oklahoma planted deep in my spirit a lifelong appreciation of rural living. Growing up among farms and farmers also provided a clear picture of how much there is to do on a farm.
Although my career until recently has moved me around the country quite a bit, I have always made it a point to live in the country whenever I could. My most recent experience with farm life was living on a working farm and orchard in eastern Kansas. I no longer live there, but visit frequently and am always reminded of precisely how perfect life can be when your neighbors are a comfortable distance away, your dog gets to run without a leash, you share your life with animals and the air is sweet and clean. Life in the country isn’t always a bucolic wonderland, but for my money, it’s one of the best ways to assure some sanity and peace in a world that sometimes seems anything but serene or even healthy.
I worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor in New Mexico and Wyoming for 20 years before moving to Kansas in 2001 to work as managing editor for our sister publication, Mother Earth News magazine. In 2003 I left Mother Earth News to become editor in chief of two new acquisitions, The Herb Companion and Herbs for Health magazines, and in the summer of 2005, five other publications, including Grit were added to my department. That I’ve been able to work for not one, but two of my iconic magazines – Mother Earth News and Grit – sometimes seems like such good fortune I can barely believe it.
Oscar H. Will III, Editor
Like Dorothy, I’m not entirely sure how I got here except that I have passion for publishing, small-scale agriculture and living in the country. I was born in Bismarck, North Dakota where my family operated a seed company and nursery, which my great grandfather and namesake founded in the early 1880s. Early childhood experiences at the nursery and among the Missouri River’s bluffs left me with an abiding love of plants (especially grasses) and a profound appreciation for the prairie.
Between then and now, I spent sixteen years in academia as a biologist, which thankfully left enough time to do some nursery work, farming and writing on the side. My commercial agricultural production experience includes alfalfa sprouts, hay, beef cattle, free-range poultry (meat and eggs), native perennial plants, trees, cut flowers and truck crops on farms in South Dakota and Ohio. During the six years immediately prior to landing in Kansas, I freelanced for several magazines, including Grit, Farm Collector, Mother Earth News and other Ogden Publications titles.
Family members and friends call me Hank to distinguish me from the other two Oscars in the lineage. I prefer Hank, but will answer to just about anything.
Jean Teller, Senior Associate Editor
A winding road of career choices brought me to Grit nine years ago, and it's been a good fit. I will continue to be the person behind Recipe Box and Mail Call, as I have been for the last few years, and now I’ll also be preparing Looking Back for your participation and perusal. I grew up in a small town in north-central Kansas, learning early that I am most definitely a child of the High Plains. I adore the wide open spaces, seeing for miles over the rolling prairie and feeling the wind on my face – although I’ve discovered in the last few years that time on an ocean is as much of a balm to my spirit as a visit to the wide-open prairie.
Jennifer Nemec, Associate Editor
My love affair with publishing started right out of college with my first job as an editor at Cliffs Notes and has continued through a few other publishers and a few states (most recently Colorado) to land me here at Grit. My affection for rural life began when my parents brought me home as a baby to the family homestead in southeastern Nebraska. I fondly remember my grandmother taking my brother and me to watch (quietly!) under the barn door while a calf was born and the summer we bottle-fed Sam the Ram Lamb in his playpen in our living room. Whenever I need a break from streetlights, I go back there to visit my 95-year-old grandmother and soak up some wind-blown peace and quiet.