MISSOULA (AP)
A man who made millions in the Silicon Valley high-tech industry, bought Montana property and manages it with an emphasis on conservation is the new owner of a Bitterroot Valley ranch, and says he wants to shield it from development. Roger Lang, owner of the 18,700-acre Sun Ranch in Montana's Madison Valley, bought the Schroeder Ranch last month for $26 million. Lang, whose Inf ini t y Financial Technology software company was bought by SunGard Data Systems in 1998, said he plans to put much of the Schroeder Ranch under conservation easements, as he did the Sun Ranch. He looks for properties that are "in harm's way," he said Friday. "I believe that had the Schroeder Ranch gone to a developer who would have put 300 homes on it, that would have been an utter loss for Montanans," he said. Lang said he plans to develop a dozen or so homesites on the ranch. He anticipates a "treadlightly tourism destination site" with fishing, horseback riding and naturalist education opportunities that will be open to the public, he said. The Schroeder Ranch has been a cattle operation with nearly 7,000 deeded and leased acres in the lower Bitterroot Valley. The ranch has been in the Schroeder family since the early 1880s. "You know, the decision to sell was never particularly an economic one," Bob Schroeder said. "There are six children in our family now and we all get along fine. There's going to be 30-some heirs in the next generation. How do you keep that from becoming a giant family squabble?" Schroeder said his family did not wish to sell the ranch and "just have another great big subdivision. We were looking for a conservation buyer and somebody that wanted to keep an agricul tural uni t going." Lang said the place will be known as the Schroeder Sun Ranch and will support cattle. "We're going to brand our cattle as Sun Ranch Cattle Co. Beef, but we will be paying homage from here to eternity to the Schroeder namesake," he said.
