THE TWO OF US...
About Jim & LuAnn
Together as the owners of Last Resort Equestrian Center, LuAnn and Jim love where we live. Here we enjoy sunrises, sunsets, full eclipses of the moon, our domestic animals from ducks, chickens, geese, cats, dogs, horses, a couple of cows now and then and our resident burrow. We are proud sponsors of many nationally and internationally recognized exemplary clinicians. We have links to many of their website elsewhere on this website.
Jim has a life-long love for the outdoors and all it offers. He was a District Wildlife Manager, Area Wildlife Manager, Training Administrator, the first Colorado POST Wildlife Academy Director, an Assistant Regional Wildlife Manager and the Administrator of Special Projects of Statewide Importance with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. With Jim’s professional background, training and a lifetime of experiences, Jim easily recognized that Midwest’s products are superior to their competitor’s products. Jim also likes Midwest’s philosophical positive can-do, problem-solving attitude and their environmental stewardship philosophy. Midwest positively cares about the environment and this blends well with Jim’s personal philosophy.
LuAnn also has a life-long love of animals in general and horses in particular. As a volunteer, LuAnn assisted with and helped monitor the reintroduction of Osprey to northern Colorado. Together we live in Larimer County Colorado which is 2,634 mi² with a mix of urban and rural areas. She has served on Larimer County Colorado’s Agricultural Advisory Board. As an active member on Larimer County’s Horse Working Group, LuAnn was also instrumental in drafting and developing Larimer County’s new horse property regulations. She has worked in 4H as an organizational leader and countywide as the horse program coordinator.
It was 2004 when Jim and his wife LuAnn personally began using Arena Rx® on their 80-acre ranch, and with Jim’s background, it was just natural that US EPA independently verified safe, clean, healthy, and eco-friendly Midwest products fit naturally into their ranch operations. Jim and LuAnn’s personal communications with other Arena Rx® end-users and our thorough research of various potential alternative products (see bullet statements below), followed by a cost-benefit analysis of each lead us to conclude that Midwest’s extensive line of dust control products including Arena Rx®, EnviroKleen® EK35® and Diamond Doctor® were indeed superior to all other competitor’s products in both short-term and long-term performance. Frankly, Last Resort Equestrian Center was and remains too precious to us to use anything else. And since no other manufacturer’s products on the market back then as well as today have more independent environmental verifications and certifications than Midwest Industrial… well, that confirmed it for Jim and LuAnn.
When the opportunity arose in 2010, Jim secured and purchased the Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and New Mexico distributorship. Three years later when offered, Jim acquired exclusive rights to sell Arena Rx® in North America. Together Jim and LuAnn own and operate Good 4 Dirt – Dust & Soil Solutions LLC, which focuses on using Midwest Industrial Supply Inc.’s quality products because they are the gold-standard products recognized worldwide as the leader in dust palliative products!
(Note: Other dust control options considered and discarded included:
- Water: Too temporary, too time consuming, too wasteful of a precious resource;
- Magnesium Chloride, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Chloride: Too, corrosive, too toxic, too prone to suck up moisture and dry things out, too harsh on buildings, tack, hooves, trailers, and other equipment, plus water-soluble chlorides when wet leech out and become ineffective requiring new applications; too prone to becoming airborne;
- Vegetable Oils: Too susceptible to autooxidation (rancidification) with it double bonding (molecules sharing electrons in their outer shell) have tendencies for autoxidation;
- Food grade mineral oil: Too great a flow rate (too little of a resistance to flow without a polymer binder/ tackifier) action of gravity will pull it out of the footing and into the base over a relatively short period of time.
- Wax-coated sand: too expensive for us;
- Products with absurd claims: Too good to be true. Some products may have false or misleading claims. We strongly recommend everyone perform due diligence and check out any and every product you may consider using. A product’s Safety Data Sheet is important. Read and understand them. CAS registry numbers are the gold standard for chemical substance information. Cross-check and reference them to know what chemicals are in a product. Confirm whether a product may have pernicious chemicals that reasonable people would never seriously consider applying to their property. Doing this will help you make an informed decision.
In passing, a final thought… At Last Resort Equestrian Center, we have not watered our indoor arena since our first application of Arena Rx® “Clean Air for Horse and Rider™ in 2004. A person will need to do light maintenance applications on an as-need basis. For us, that is about every 14 to 16 months. It’s now 14+ years later… 2018 and counting…
- … So, while others continued to water day-after-day, month-after-month, year-after-year (temporary watering still remains the most common form of dust suppression in the United States), my wife and I estimate we have saved over 2700 hours of time that would have been spent watering our arenas. That’s about 112 twenty-four hour days of watering time… e.g., calculation, if LuAnn or I spent just 2 hours twice a week watering our arenas, then from 2004 to 2020 there are 16 years. 4 hrs/week x 52 weeks/yr = 208 hrs/yrs x 16 yrs = 3328 hours spent watering just one indoor arena. Take 3328 hr /24hrs/day = 138 days at 24 hrs/day of watering just one arena S= TIME SAVED… and that’s jonly the time saved. Think about the water we have saved, the wear and tear on equipment, etc.
- …Ask yourself this question, “WHAT IS MY TIME WORTH”? For me, my time becomes more valuable with the passing of time).
The above is my testimonial regarding what can be achieved with Arena Rx® “Clean Air for Horse and Rider”™.
Respectfully stated,
Jim Goodyear