Deacon Spotlight: K. Isaac Oliver

K. Isaac Oliver (2006, BA in English)

Owner/Operator at Harmony Ridge Farms in Tobaccoville, NC

Tell us about your current job role/employer and what you’re currently working on. 

I’m the owner and operator of Harmony Ridge Farms in Tobaccoville, North Carolina. My father and I opened the farm fifteen minutes away from Wake’s campus in 2010, but I took over full ownership in 2021. We’re a diversified sustainable farm, so we’re raising a really wide variety of crops. Right now, we have mostly vegetables, some melons, eggs and pasture-raised meats.

What key personal and/or career experiences led you to where you are today?

I would say in many ways my indecisive twenties (spent searching and not really knowing exactly where I was headed) sort of led me to where I’m at now. I ended up working a lot of different odd jobs, just kind of feeling things out. I found myself feeling very drawn to working with my hands and being outdoors a lot more.

I took some time off from school and started working in a greenhouse in Washington state. That kind of led me back into doing some gardening. I’d gardened with my dad when I was a kid, so doing it again brought back a lot of nice memories. It was a good experience and honestly pretty healing for me.

After I graduated from school, my wife and I actually moved back to Washington. I ended up working in Seattle for a tropical plant company for a little while to get some more valuable horticultural and customer service experience out in the real world. Later, the recession hit, and I lost my job. We realized we wanted to be closer to home, and decided to start over and move back to Winston to be near my parents. My dad was getting closer to retirement from HanesBrands, and we had been talking quite a bit about the possibility of starting a farm. Once I got back here, we started getting each other more excited about it and looking into some properties. That’s when we bought the land I live on now. We basically just started gardening on a big scale and grew up from there.

What is the most challenging aspect of your job? How do you navigate that challenge?

Staffing is by far the hardest part. If someone leaves, I am suddenly left with 40 hours a week that I immediately have to find somebody to fill. In general, just hiring more people has helped! That way I’m not as often in a pinch.

What advice would you give to Wake Forest graduates about developing their personal life habits after college (finances, health, values, work/life balance)?

It sounds cliché, but just follow your heart. Cultivate your passions at home, and be sure to do what moves you and makes you feel alive. If you’re stuck in a rut, try doing something differently. Don’t be afraid to make changes.

We know that relationships are important for any kind of development. How do you build and maintain your network?

Honestly, the smartphone has been a real boon to small farmers in a lot of ways, especially in farms like ours, where a lot of our business involves selling to chefs and restaurants all over North Carolina. Just being able to text has been paramount. 

I also really value accessibility and maintain pretty consistent communication with the local community. We keep a listserv for our business and send out newsletters. Every Monday, we send out a “goodie list” to the general public of what seasonal crops and goods we’re selling that week. We’ll even deliver orders all over the Winston-Salem and Charlotte areas.

Tell us about your mentoring relationships. What impact have these relationships had on your career and life?

When I think about somebody I would want to model my life after, I would first have to say my father. He’s been a great mentor. He grew up in the country in Ohio, way more entrenched in the farming culture than I was (having grown up in the suburbs). I ran this business with my dad for close to 11 years, and we worked side-by-side to build Harmony Ridge Farms. He came from a corporate background and provided really valuable advice to help guide me in the right direction. Also, his community resources and connections have been really helpful, especially at the beginning of the farm when we were just getting started.

My grandfather also had a huge influence on me and who I want to be in life. He was a pillar of the community and very, very involved. He helped his church in Ohio run a food bank, right up until he passed away in his nineties. He was always helping people, doing whatever he could.

Food access was really important to him, and that’s become a lasting part of our farm. We actually run two different community outreach programs and are currently providing weekly food to over 150 families in Forsyth Country. It’s not always easy to do that on top of everything else, but I think it’s important to have that connection the community, especially those of us who really, really need that food. There’s so much poverty in Winston-Salem that, unfortunately, many people are not aware of. We’re trying to do our part and do what we can, continuing my family’s legacy.

What advice would you give to current Wake Forest students and/or young alumni who are about to start their first professional job?

If you are planning to farm, be prepared to work extremely hard and make plenty of sacrifices. It’s an all-encompassing lifestyle, more than it is a profession. There are pros and cons to farming and being so attached to the land, but we really need more young farmers. There’s an alarmingly low number of younger farmers in America.

What are your future career goals or plans? How are you being intentional about working towards them?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, what I might do after farming. I feel like that could include some nonprofit work around food access like we’ve discussed, getting involved with that on a different level. That could also be some sort of consulting or just helping or partnering with other small farms, maybe volunteering to help them build their businesses and get their feet underneath them. I feel like I have some pretty valuable life lessons to pass along from running this business that could help other small farmers.

I’m also interested in writing more. I was an English major at Wake, and writing has always been something I have wanted to do more of. It’s just hard with such a busy lifestyle.

Story published in June 2024. For current updates on Isaac’s career path and Harmony Ridge Farms, visit this website.