Ranahan or “ranny”: a top cowhand.

 He’s USCA’s  “ranny”.   A student of international trade and its effect on the U.S. cattle industry, Doug Zalesky is an expert that Washington, DC calls on regularly to testify on trade issues.    Whether it’s the ITC (International Trade Commission) or congressional hearings, Zalesky has been there, done that.  And then some.  He’s traveled across the country speaking to cattle groups on trade issues, and he was part of a fact-finding team that spent a week in Central America in 2005 researching the effect of CAFTA on the U.S. cattle industry.

Zalesky was part of a three-person lobbying team that worked Capitol Hill during the days and hours preceding the CAFTA vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.  CAFTA passed... by just two votes...in a historically close and controversial vote.

This Nebraska native holds a PhD in bovine reproductive physiology from Texas A& M University.  He earned his Master’s Degree at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

He and his wife and 18 year-old son, Sam, live in the mountains of southwestern Colorado where Doug is a research scientist and manager of the 6500 acre San Juan Basin Research Center.    He and his family run their own herd of commercial cattle in the area. 

He’s a fireman, too, who serves his rural community as the volunteer assistant chief of the Ft. Lewis Mesa Fire Department.   He’s as comfortable in a fire helmet as he is a cowboy hat on the back of his horse.

Zalesky is the president and one of the original founders of the Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association (CICA).   He serves USCA as the director from Region IV.