Environmentalist Carl Palmer and former venture capitalist Robert Keith, both MBA ’03, founded Beartooth Capital Partners http://beartoothcap.com , a real estate private equity firm, to generate strong financial returns through the restoration and conservation of ecologically important ranchland.
Beartooth purchases properties in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, a sublime landscape of mountains, rivers, and meadows in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Before reselling parcels, which usually measure upward of 1,000 acres, the company restores habitat to make it attractive to wildlife—and, consequently, to buyers—and places the properties under conservation easements that encourage agriculture and permanently limit subdivision and development.
Founding a company like Beartooth was a dream of Palmer’s—he presented the original model as a project in Joel Peterson’s real estate investment class at the Stanford Business School. “I felt this could be a real engine for conservation,” Palmer says.
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0802/spreadsheet.html