Overview

Mary Heffernan and her husband were working  full time in the big city, and like most city slickers, they were caught up in the hustle and bustle of every day life.  With ownership of a few restaurants, they found local meat suppliers were not producing high quality meats. "Naively", Mary sought to solve this issue by farming the cattle herself. The family soon realized owning a cattle ranch was not a part time gig and made the leap to take on cattle ranching full-time. From adjusting to country living, to the daily challenges of farm life, listen in to hear how Mary built a side venture into a full fledged career. 

About Our Guest

Marry Heffernan grew up in Menlo Park, California. With her eyes on a career in the medical field, Mary set up a tutoring school to help pay her way through college. From here, Mary realized pretty quickly that she enjoyed the challenges of starting a business. Mary stopped her pursuit of the medical field and began her  journey into serial entrepreneurship, launching business after business where she saw needs in her community.  

By the time she had met her husband, Mary was on to building restaurants. Seeing a lack in the supply chain for high quality meats and with a family growing tired of the hustle and bustle of everyday city life, it wasn't long before Mary did what she does best and took on a new venture. Mary, her husband, and four kids made the leap and moved a few hours north to Fort Jones, California. 

Mary and her family currently own and operate Five Marys Farms, a cattle ranch focused on producing high quality meats. Through their ranch, they have established themselves as a stake hold in their community running a variety of programs that work help young entrepreneurs get into ranching and educate school children on the opportunity in their agricultural community. 

You can learn more about Five Marys Farm and their mission at https://www.fivemarysfarms.com/  

or on Instagram: @fivemarysfarm

Episode Quote

"...we kind of naively thought..we can't find anybody to do what we want so we thought we would just do this ourselves..."