BEILHARZ: "I no longer feel like one of those pet animals on a wheel."

Photo by KENNY BRAUN

On a rare break from running her new ecotourism business in the wilds of Texas Hill Country, Amy Beilharz (MBA ’84) reflects on the life she and her husband, David, have built since leaving successful corporate careers.

“Well, right now I’m looking out the window at my nine-year-old daughter feeding a baby deer,” says Beilharz in a phone interview. “That’s a huge change from the affluent neighborhood in Austin where we once lived.”

Indeed, life was, for many years, fast-paced and intense for Beilharz, who once dreamed of becoming a Fortune 500 CEO. “I had very high aspirations,” says Beilharz, who was, by 1988, in top management at MetroCel, a major player in the then-budding cellular industry. “I was enthralled with my career, with the money, and with the power. It was very seductive.”

But then something dawned on her during a dinner conversation with her boss, who had recently sold his previous company for several million dollars. “He was highly driven, over-stressed, and going for the next carrot,” she recalls. “I remember thinking, ‘When is it enough?’ That was a pivotal moment for me.” Beilharz and her husband, an importer of automobile parts, began considering some big changes.

Beilharz quit her job to care for her first child and stayed home as her brood grew to four — now ages 9 through 18. In 1998, the family left Austin for an undeveloped 88-acre spread in Texas Hill Country thirty miles west, taking with them nothing but a travel trailer and a portable generator. For the next five years, they slept in a yurt while David designed and built their new home.

Deciding to work with nature rather than trying to alter it, the couple developed their own solar, wind, and hydro-energy generating systems, and they began raising buffalo to sell to local restaurants. The ranch today has a menagerie, including horses, chickens, ducks, a rabbit, the aforementioned rescued orphan deer, two cats, and a dog.

As they settled in, the couple began looking for ways to share the beauty of the property, which is thick with “beautiful, huge, old-growth cypress trees lining an incredible creek,” says Beilharz. To avoid damaging the habitat with roads and trails, the Beilharzes built a network of aerial zip-lines — cables that transport riders seated in a harness from tree to tree. In 2004, they opened Cypress Valley Canopy Tours (www.cypressvalleycanopytours.com), an ecoadventure company that gives visitors a bird’s-eye perspective of the environment. Today, a small staff of guides is on hand to take riders on canopy tours.

“It’s great. People come off the course exhilarated,” says Beilharz.

There’s no doubt that life in the trees has been good for Beilharz. “Even though it can be pretty hectic at times, I would never go back,” she explains. “I still use my Harvard skills, but I no longer feel like one of those pet animals on a wheel, running like mad for someone else’s entertainment.”

— Margie Kelley

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