OUR STORY
"Design, at its best, can regenerate both the land and people who are a part of the supply chain."
Founder, Cate Havstad-Casad on how Range Revolution came to be.
What is a "range revolution"?
The wordplay conjures a thought process about how we consider rangelands and the people who steward them. Rangelands are often left out of the picture when we talk about different ecosystems, but they hold a large percentage of the world’s remaining biodiversity, and they have potential to sequester more carbon than even rainforests. Rangelands make up more than 54% of earth’s land mass, these are important ecosystems that are in trouble right now. It’s an important and critical time to shine a lens on them and build supply chains that support their regeneration.
How did Range Revolution begin?
Originally I sought to create a luggage piece for Havstad Hat Company, and I wanted to find leathers that aligned with how I live the rest of my life. I wanted them to be local, to be sustainably raised and from this ecoregion. As soon as I started looking, I realized that a supply chain didn’t exist. All of the hides from mid-sized processors in Oregon are thrown in the trash. Taking it a step further, from my research, I learned more than 5 million hides are thrown in the trash just in the United States. Most leathers that are part of our fashion supply chain can be traced to Brazil and to the deforestation of the rainforests. That’s where things started in 2020, and it has been a journey to rebuild this regenerative, regional leather supply chain for Range Revolution.
Revolutions can be beautiful. Design can be a force for good. Businesses in support of biodiversity and circularity are the future.
What is the long-term vision for Range Revolution?
I want to focus my energy on showing people what transparency, traceability and regenerative sourcing look like, because it’s doable. We have just gotten used to a different and extractive way. My vision is that in the next five years, 100% of our supply chain will be sourced from our ecoregion. We’re building the relationships, aggregation and an economic model to do that. It’s important to build the blueprints and create relationships to find partners who are able to think at a larger scale, both from a business standpoint and from a humanity standpoint.
How does this come through in design?
All of our bags have a heritage look and a timelessness to their design. Some styles are unisex, some more feminine and some more masculine. They’re about letting the natural fiber shine. We’re not hiding the marks that show this is leather. Great design communicates ethos in the most subtle ways. How a certain item makes you feel when you wear it, if you understand the story of the fibers and have a connection to this item, it can make you think about everything around you and about how something is intentionally created. That’s my goal in design.
*Originally featured in Bend Magazine. Read the full piece here.
Founder
Cate Havstad-Casad is a designer, entrepreneur and first-generation regenerative rancher. She founded her first company, Havstad Hat Company, in 2014, and has evolved as a designer and a land steward in tandem.
Cate and her husband, Chris Casad, also manage Casad Family Farms, a diversified organic farm, which they have scaled from a 3-acre market farm into a 365-acre, regeneratively managed operation, verified with Ecological Outcomes monitoring.
In 2021, Cate founded Range Revolution as an endeavor to connect her purpose in design and agriculture, finding artful ways to inspire people to find their place in the natural world.