Austin hails from the Central Valley as a fifth generation Californian. He spend much of his childhood with his family camping and backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and in high school, he volunteered much of his summers with the Backcountry Horsemen, working with their trail crews on the Emigrant Wilderness and on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Realizing his love for the mountains and the great outdoors, he came to Lander in 2009 to attend Wyoming Catholic College as a member of its third class. During those summers while he was a student at WCC, he worked for the Shoshone National Forest as a horse packer, as well as leading groups of volunteers tasked with building bridges and fixing trails in wilderness areas.

Through the Forest Service’s stock program, he learned packing skills from some of the nation’s best packers and horseman while working on the ‘Horse Forest,’ a name earned through being the first National Forest whose trails were forged by trappers and packers exploring the area, and whose backcountry infrastructure was built using hard-working horse and mule strings.

After graduating from Wyoming Catholic in 2013, Austin worked with the Wyoming Department of Transportation as a snow plow driver before moving over to the Construction side of WYDOT, working in the Lander office as a surveyor and field technician tasked with overseeing numerous construction jobs and transportation projects.

In 2022, he moved his family to Northwest Montana, where he thought he would put down his roots, but Our Lady had other plans. In the fall of 2024, while on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje with his father, he was moved to surrender his vocation to Saint Joseph, which quickly led him back to Lander. After his return, he started up a property maintenance and cleaning business, which serves Lander and employs various WCC students throughout the semester. Now, he finds himself working even more closely with the College and its students as an Equestrian Instructor and the Head of Horsemanship Operations.

Austin focuses his vocational energy on service to others and that is evident in his actions. He has been a member of the Lander Volunteer Fire Department since 2015, and enjoys discussing local big game and ecological stewardship. Away from work, he enjoys hunting, spending time with his three children, immersing them in God’s First Book, and teaching them the skills necessary to live and thrive in The West.