A licensed registered nurse, Demeter® Certified Biodynamic farmer, and herbalist, Randy Buresh and his wife, Pamela, are making their dreams come true. As the co-founders, owners, and operators of Oregon's Wild Harvest, they are passionate about health and healing, naturally. Their mission is to provide the freshest, purest, safest and most effective certified organic herbs used for supplements, bulk herbs, herbal teas, spices, extracts and herb oils available. And, they're perfectly suited to do it.

Randy's career in healing began in the Midwest, where he grew up learning to farm and be a responsible steward of the land. He first earned a degree in surgery technology, and then later returned to Central Methodist College (Fayette, Missouri) where he earned his R.N. (Registered Nurse) degree. He has worked as a Certified Surgical Nurse, a R.N., a Physician's Assistant and an E.M.T. During Randy's medical career, he could not help but notice the heavy reliance on pharmaceuticals, which he often believed simply masked symptoms, without ever adequately addressing the underlying problem: the disease causing the symptoms. He was certain that covering up the symptoms only drove the disease deeper into the body. Randy became frustrated watching patient after patient go into surgery, too often without really needing the operation, and then relying, once again, on pharmaceuticals or more surgeries.

He began researching less invasive treatments for health conditions, which led him to natural herbal medicine. An opportunity to serve in a technical position with an Oregon Tilth Certified Organic herb farm and herbal supplement manufacturer reaffirmed his commitment to healing with organically grown herbal remedies.

Randy says, "We are on the brink of a serious health care crisis in this country. With the baby boomers aging, people living longer, yet not always taking care of their bodies, something has to change. The answer is not more pharmaceutical drugs. People must begin taking better care of themselves, providing their bodies with nutritional support in profound ways -which quality herbs do. A concentrated dose of vitamins, minerals, amino acids that the body needs but isn't getting...this is a better answer than taking drugs like they were candy. And because of this, and the undisputable positive effects that herbs have on our bodies, I believe that herbs will play a significant role in the future of modern health care."

Randy's desire to help more people understand their health issues, combined with his extensive knowledge on the subject and his passion for herbal medicine, frequently leads him to giving presentations to retailers and health practitioners. He has lectured at Bastyr University in Seattle, WA, as well as at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, OR.

Shortly after starting their business, Pam took a trip to Mexico that would change her life, and strengthen her resolve to provide customers with only the highest quality of pure, organic herbs. During her trip, Pam became very ill by coming in contact with an unknown toxin. For months following her trip, she was unable to eat, lost twenty-five pounds, felt nauseous all the time, and had virtually no energy or ability to focus on anything besides how miserable she felt. She experienced a tingling sensation in her arms, an overwhelming anxiety, and "sense of doom." She reports, "I really thought I was going to die. And no one could find what was wrong with me, or find a way of helping me. It was awful."

For months, Pam was treated by infectious disease specialists, GI specialists, a naturopath, her regular MD, and an acupuncturist. During this time, Randy also tried to determine the cause of his wife's illness and how to treat it. He began learning of other people with very similar symptoms. Most of the time, these people (often women) and their conditions were dismissed as being "in their head," since no test medicine provided could produce a definitive answer as to what ailed them.

Eventually, after many tests, a lot of rest, and the regular use of herbal supplements detoxification drinks, Pam was finally able to detoxify her system of whatever poison afflicted her. Since then, her commitment to safety, purity and quality herbs has never wavered. Pam's experience reinforced her passion to offer only the purest quality herbs to people. Realizing how negatively the body and the nervous system, in particular, could be affected by toxins - knowledge gained from her research as well as her own personal experience, Pam became adamant about enforcing the highest level of quality control possible on each herbal product her company would offer to consumers.

"After I'd survived the worst illness of my life, as a result of what I believe was a toxic substance, I wanted to know for certain that we were giving people only the cleanest, purest herbs, of the best quality, with no danger of producing anything but a very positive effect. I want our products to help people."

It's an emphasis that continues today, backed up daily by qualified scientists who oversee Quality Control, and by the best technology has to offer in terms of microbe testing and plant verification. Pam says, "It's impossible to overstate the impact of my being so sick for so long. It has everything to do with how and why our company does what it does."

In Randy's Words

As 2007 Comes to a Close