U.S. Air Force veteran — Security Forces · MBA, Colorado State University · B.A. Economics, Indiana University
Dorian Cleary founded BAU Farm Foundation to give the next generation of American farmers what he wishes every new farmer had: land to stand on, mentors who've done the work, and a training path built for the way farmers actually learn. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a Security Forces Defender, where he learned early that good systems save lives and bad ones cost them — a lesson that now shapes how the Foundation designs its curriculum, safety protocols, and cohort structure.
After service, Dorian spent fifteen years in finance — capital markets, risk management, and building software for regulated, high-stakes environments. He saw firsthand how capital and discipline reshape an industry, and how completely both have bypassed the small and mid-size American farm. He returned to agriculture to close that gap, and stood up BAU Farm Foundation as the charitable arm of that work: a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit that runs a 3-day intensive for beginning and specialty crop farmers in regenerative agriculture on a working model farm.
His conviction is simple. Farms are businesses and should be run like it. Farmers are operators and should be trained like it. And the people doing the hardest work in this country — in the fields — deserve tools, mentors, and a path to ownership, not another workshop. The Foundation exists to build that path, one cohort at a time.
"The rows don't care where you started. They just ask you to show up. Our job is to make sure a farmer who shows up has land under their boots, a mentor at their shoulder, and a real operation waiting on the other side of the training."
