It’s not typical that an erosion control professional is a reality TV star, but Corey Huwa and his family are indeed atypical, running myriad family businesses dating back several generations. Cash Cowboys is a Pop TV reality program featuring Huwa and his family as 21st century Western cowboys reclaiming areas destroyed by hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and fires by combining their knowledge, work ethic, and core company values of safety, accountability, commitment, family, respect, humility, integrity, and communication passed on through generations of farming. Huwa, his brothers Tyrun and Brent, his father Rich, and others demonstrate the driving factors of faith, family, and entrepreneurialism in employing a growing pool of workers saving the US landscape. The Huwas’ entrepreneurialism has also created the companies Arnold’s Custom Seeding, Dura Pride, Duraroot Environmental Consulting, H2 Enterprises, Hanging H, Huwa Reserve, Miete Equipment, Milestone Companies, SolSpec, Terra Restoration, Total Field & Environment Services, and Twisted H Bucking Bulls. Huwa manages Arnold’s Custom Seeding, the family’s national erosion control and right-of-way restoration company. The company to date has reclaimed three-quarters of a million acres in 33 states and lays claim to being the first to bring hydromulch to the pipeline industry, to successfully complete 300 miles of right of way in 30 days, to make its own equipment to navigate North Dakota’s steep badlands, and to use aerial right-of-way reclamation in the Appalachian Mountains.
What He Does Day to Day
In addition to Arnold’s Custom Seeding, Huwa helps run several of the family’s companies, including Huwa Reserve, an online all-natural beef company; Duraroot, the soil science division; and SolSpec, the drone and data processing division. He also stars in Cash Cowboys. Huwa enjoys getting out in the field. “We work nationally and have 400 employees and 800 seasonally, so there’s always a problem to solve,” says Huwa. “Most of our work is for the oil and gas industry, so I travel regularly to visit crews and clients.”
What Led Him to This Line of Work
Huwa, the second of four brothers, grew up on the family’s small farm outside Keenesburg, CO, learning to love the land and work hard. He worked over spring break while friends and cousins took vacations, “but I liked it and actually took pride in that,” he notes. The farm has grown to some 4,000 acres of corn, wheat, grass hay, and alfalfa, and 500 head of cattle. With only 14 inches of annual rain, the Huwas rely on irrigation to produce results. “I had the benefit of farming with my dad and grandpa, who still actively work the farmland,” says Huwa. “My Grandpa Herman, now 92 years young, still operates tractors, but now they’re ‘self-driving,’ GPS-guided with cabs and climate control.” Huwa attended college on a track scholarship, graduating with an Associate of Applied Science degree in agriculture. He married and then bought a farm with his older brother Brent, who worked as a John Deere mechanic to make ends meet while Huwa worked the farm and also helped his father and grandfather. “A couple years later, we had an opportunity to help mitigate a large Colorado forest fire through a neighbor with an erosion control company,” notes Huwa, explaining how the family launched into the erosion control business. Huwa loved working the land, but notes its profitability could be difficult. “Mother Nature is always throwing curve balls. Doing erosion control is perfect for me because it allows me to still take care of the land—just in a different way.”
What He Likes Best About His Job
“The best thing about my job is the people, and we have the best people you could ask for,” notes Huwa. “It has been my greatest pleasure to get to work alongside our team and watch people smarter and more capable than me elevate our company to what it is and what it will become, as well as the people we work for that helped us get started in the industry and continue to be part of our success.”
“One of the biggest challenges is to always be changing and innovating new ways to do it better, smarter, safer, and more efficiently, and hiring the right people who believe in our vision and core values to make it great,” says Huwa.
