Ryan “Ol’ Cal” Callaghan
Missoula, MT
Ryan “Ol’ Cal” Callaghan grew up in Missoula at a time when the Rattlesnake still felt like a neighborhood wilderness and a place where everyone could afford to live. Born in Billings to a mom from Lockwood and a dad from Missoula, he spent his childhood two blocks from Rattlesnake Creek. “I’d fish Rattlesnake Creek all the time,” he says. “I was a latchkey kid. I would run around on the deer trails for miles.”
Like most kids in that part of town, he started kindergarten at Mount Jumbo in East Missoula, then went to Prescott for 4th and 5th grade, Rattlesnake for junior high, and finally Hellgate for high school. Each school brought a new route and the chance for every kid to walk to their neighborhood school. “It was not a homogeneous upbringing,” he says. “That mix of perspectives and economic classes absolutely prepares you for real life.”
His teachers made strong impressions. Mr. Rud, the proud Norwegian social studies teacher; Mrs. Marvin, his unforgettable third-grade teacher who had lost three fingers “tying up a mule.” Choir (and show choir!) with Dean Peterson became another major community, a place where all kinds of kids came together. “Dean was amazing . . . but he would make choir super hard work.”
But it was sports – especially football – that shaped him the most. Despite his dad having to drag him away from fishing to do it, “It was wildly valuable to me.” Starting in 5th grade with Little Grizzly Football, the program intentionally mixed students from different parts of town every year, helping kids broaden their circles and later “diffuse certain social situations” in high school. Football teams are big and diverse. Offense, defense, special teams, and a large coaching staff that “did a great job promoting camaraderie.” And in Montana, long bus rides gave everyone time to get to know each other.
His dad’s secretary’s husband, an outfitter, became his hunting mentor. In college, Ryan worked construction crews during the day, party rental setups on weekends, and bartended at Red’s at night. “Just a killer education,” he says. “Smart people, crazy drunk people, unhoused people trying to hit you with a bottle, whacked-out frat kids, brides going nuts on the weekends, then building houses and doing other trade work during the week.”
“For me,” he says about school, “the thing that I took the furthest was the social skills.”
That education of people, places, and problem-solving would later shape his work as a guide, as Director of Conservation and a host on MeatEater, and as one of North America’s leading conservation voices. It was this access to public lands that gave him the confidence to navigate life’s challenges. “Montana’s public lands were where I had the space to push the boundaries of physical and emotional security. By extending my hikes, biking routes, fishing and hunting excursions farther and into more unfamiliar forests I gained independence, I learned to trust myself, understand my capabilities. I got to know how to get myself into trouble and get myself out. If that’s not freedom, what is?”
Ryan is now the incoming CEO of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a role built on his love for the people and places that shaped him: public schools and public lands.
“Montana’s public lands were where I had the space to push the boundaries of physical and emotional security. By extending my hikes, biking routes, fishing and hunting excursions farther and into more unfamiliar forests I gained independence, I learned to trust myself, understand my capabilities. I got to know how to get myself into trouble and get myself out. If that’s not freedom, what is?”