It takes an elevator
to raise a buffalo

Some Minnesotans retire and move to Sun City. Some others - two, by our most recent count - retire and decide to stay in the north country and raise buffalo.

But Don and Marlene Solwold, when their peers were calculating their retirement benefits, were only getting started in a new life of innovation and entrepreneurism with their built-from-scratch buffalo ranch. Later, their interest in raising buffalo and selling breed stock and meat led them into manufacturing and marketing buffalo feed that comes from a wholly unexpected source. And this, in case you were wondering, is the connection with the Port of Duluth-Superior.

We'll start at the beginning, find our way to the home where the buffalo roam and then work our way to the Duluth-Superior waterfront - the source of the latest thing in buffalo feed, thanks in part to Don and Marlene Solwold.

The Solwolds grew up in the fertile southwest corner of Minnesota, Don an aspiring airman even as a youngster, Marlene a farm girl who knew "I never wanted to milk another cow." Don matriculated to the U.S. Air Force and later the Air National Guard. He worked in navigation and weapons systems, ultimately retiring in 1991, as a colonel, after 37 years of service.

In the early 1970s his career had brought him and Marlene and their family to the Duluth area. It felt like home.

By 1973 they owned a hundred acres in Esko, Minn., a rural community west of Duluth, and Don was set on raising buffalo. By 1974 the Solwolds had stout fences up and a few head of great American bison - the insider's preferred term for the continent's largest land mammal - on their pasture. Don had gone from the high-tech world of military avionics to the down-to-earth business of raising live-stock, and Marlene, in her words, "had changed from milking cows to looking at buffalo."

Drawing on Don's military background, and the romance of the Old West, they called their business "Quarter Master."

Today the Solwolds run about 50 head at any one time, usually with two herd bulls and 16 cows. The rest of the animals are raised to sell as breed stock to other buffalo growers or as meat.

With America's growing interest in healthful foods, the buffalo - once slaughtered to as few as 1,500 animals from the 700 million that native Americans might have known - comes along at just the right time and surges to rising numbers under the watchful eye of caring stewards. The industry estimates that 200,000 bison are on the hoof today.

And each of these woolly creatures compares favorably in fat grams, calories and cholesterol to America's standard meats - beef, pork and poultry. Further, buffalo meat is flavorful and tender and is a nutrient-dense meat that tends to satisfy the appetite with fewer calories and fat. (Cook a quarter-pound burger and try to find the fat.)

Current demand outstrips the supply of buffalo meat and breed stock. A healthy cow is worth more as a breeder than it is for its meat. Raise yourself 50 animals and you could find yourself with a herd worth anywhere from $300 to $4,000 a head.

As the Solwolds' Quarter Master business matured, Don's innate interest in how things work - intricate weapons systems in jet fighter planes or the inner workings of the great American bison - turned toward what his animals eat. That in turn led him to a North Dakota veterinarian name of Ken Throlson, who Don calls a visionary and a leading authority in the care and feeding of buffalo.

Through Mr. Throlson, Don learned that the characteristics of important natural foods for buffalo match neatly, if unexpectedly, with the waste by-products of grain elevators. Thus, an elevator operator's problem - dust and the grass seed and weed seed that are separated from intact grain during the screening process - becomes a buffalo grower's opportunity - the makings for a pelletized feed.

That elevator waste was the seed for another of Don's businesses - Superior Pellet.

As his research continued, Don hooked up with Don Trebwasser, a man he describes as a mechanical genius. They approached the owners of the old King Midas Flour Mill ("old," meaning built in 1895) on Superior's Quebec Pier, where they might set up a pelletizing shop, and the owners of grain elevators in the Port of Duluth-Superior, who could supply their raw product. Next came months of what Don calls megawork. And trial and error. And backing up and starting over. They started to work on the process in September 1996. It wasn't until April 1998 that they had satisfactory pellets to show for their work.

But always there was a sense of progress. In time came a joint venture with ConAgra - and, finally, tons of pelletized buffalo feed. Today that feed is manufactured by one of the Twin Ports' newest and smallest enterprises, Superior Pellet.

Sales of the new product go directly to buffalo growers like Quarter Master, and others, and to feed stores. Don thought Superior Pellet would be doing well to manufacture and sell, oh, 500 tons annually. This year's sales will be 2,000 tons.

That's good news for buffalo raisers, good news for Superior Pellet and good news for the operators of grain elevators. Superior Pellet, Mr. Solwold explains, "is getting rid of a headache for the elevators for nothing."

Good news, too, at the home of Quarter Master. Marlene Solwold, born of Norwegian stock, always has something baking in the oven. Cinammon rolls are a standard. And strong coffee in the pot. And in the fridge, buffalo burgers ready for a fine turn on the stove.