Tip Hudson, 2024 PNW Section SRM Trailboss Awardee

The Trail Boss Award is the highest honor offered by Pacific Northwest Section of the Society for Range Management. It recognizes individuals for outstanding work contributing to better understanding, use, and (or) development of rangeland resources. It emphasizes sustained and substantive accomplishment.

Tip Hudson is the 2024 PNW Section SRM Trailboss awardee. Throughout his career, Tip repeatedly conceived new ideas for teaching range managers and developing tools for their use in analysis and decision making. He translated those ideas into funding to develop those tools and teaching opportunities. He shares his work through publications, workshops, presentations, and innovative media. He is the consummate range professional and thinker whose work is respected internationally. Through innovation, Tip pursues a diversity of rangeland topics making significant and lasting contribution to the practice of rangeland management.

Tip began his career in 2001 as executive vice-president of Washington Cattlemen’s Association after earning a B.S. in Range Resources and M.S. in Natural Resources at the University of Idaho. He took an Extension faculty position with Washington State University (WSU) in 2003 where his career blossomed. Tip is currently WSU Professor and County Extension Director in Kittitas and Yakima Counties and affiliate faculty in WSU’s Department of Animal Sciences.

Tip was elected to the Board of Directors of PNW Section of the Society for Range Management in 2005 and progressed through offices culminating in President in 2010. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Society for Range Management.

He is a SRM Certified Professional in Range Management and a Certified Range Management Consultant. He was the recipient of the PNW Section SRM Exemplary Service Award in 2020.

Tip is widely known for his ongoing podcast, The Art of Range, for which he receives international recognition. Begun in 2018 and continuing to the present, the 140+ episodes explore important and timely topics in rangeland science and ranch management, grazing and pastoralism, and conservation through in-depth interviews with experts and practitioners worldwide. Current and archived podcasts are readily available on several streaming services.

In his early career, Tip focused on education for ranchers in areas of rangeland health, water quality, hay production, ranch financial risk management, and livestock and grazing land health. More recently he collaborates widely with other range and extension colleagues to fund new endeavors to develop tools for rangeland managers including decision support tools. Examples are StockSmart, a free online decision support tool which uses satellite-based forage production data to assess grazing capacity, ranch financial resiliency outreach, water quality risk management, pasture and livestock health calendars, satellite and drone assessment of forage and rangeland resources, and rangeland assessment and resilience in the face of climate change.

Throughout his busy career, Tip still found time to support youth in agriculture, through 4-H, FFA, and the SRM High School Youth Forum. The position with WSU allowed him to integrate his children into fieldwork and provided flexibility to support a family, all of whom love the outdoors.

It is with great pleasure that PNW Section SRM presents the highly productive and accomplished Tip Hudson with the 2024 Trailboss Award in recognition of his significant contributions to the understanding and practice of rangeland management.