Page 62 - July_2023

The phrase Win-Win—perhaps more appropriately written WIN-WIN in this instance—describes the relationship between Granada Farms co-founder Jimmy Eller and the farm’s “new” owners, Johnny Trotter and Pete Scarmardo.
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Jimmy Eller Co-Founder
Johnny Trotter Co-Owner
Pete Scarmardo Co-Owner
by Diane Rice
“The farm was in need of some improvements that would have been difficult for me to make,” says Jimmy, whose father and Granada’s co-founder, Jim Eller Jr., had stepped back from the business.
“Johnny and Pete have a lot more resources available to them than I did, and their offer to buy if I’d stay on gave me more incentive to sell because I wasn’t wanting to retire. And it gave me the opportunity to work with two people who have greatly improved our industry.”
A SOUND BUSINESS DECISION Johnny, who lives in the Panhandle near
Hereford, Texas, and Pete, who lives about
550 miles southeast near Caldwell, Texas, have partnered on both horse and cattle operations for 40-some years. “Pete and I own a ranch near where he lives, about five miles east of Granada Farms,
so we’d stop and look at horses at Granada Farms occasionally when we’d drive by,” Johnny says.
“Pete and I talked about how we could utilize the farm in our operations,” he adds.
T
opportunity.” That adage clearly applies to
the business relationship formed in 2015 when longtime cattle- and horse-industry partners Johnny Trotter and Pete Scarmardo teamed up in yet another venture—to buy Granada Farms in Wheelock, Texas—and retain the farm’s co-founder Jimmy Eller III as general manager.
here’s an old adage that says, “Success
is what happens when hard work meets
60 SPEEDHORSE July 2023