Alberto Uranga

The son of a tuna boat skipper, Alberto was born and raised in the Basque village of Mutriku. At age 19, he was drafted by the dictatorship to serve in the Spanish Navy in Cadiz for two years. After his service, he came home to the same fishing factory where he worked before leaving. This time he served as their representative to the wine country of Rioja where they shipped canned fish and where he opened the small business market in Northern Spain and Pirineos on the border of France. “I was doing well but something was missing,” he says. “I wanted to see the world and decided to go to the American Embassy and ask to go to America to work,” he added. He received a letter to go work through the United Rancher’s Association at the Faulkner Land & Livestock ranch in Gooding, Idaho.

Alberto’s life in Idaho begins in February 1968. He and Fernando, another soon-to-be herder from his hometown, arrived in the U.S. not speaking a word of English. They passed through New York then Salt Lake City to ultimately arrive in Gooding to begin the adventure of their lives at the Faulkner’s ranch.

Alberto was 22 years old in March 1968 when he headed into the desert and then the mountains with the sheep. One day, he found a baby coyote near Hagerman, Idaho, which he took under his wing as a companion. Later that season, he looked for his new companion one morning and he heard the howling. Unable to find him, Alberto knew Mother Nature had called him to go and find his mate. “This is one of my stories of happiness,” he shared.

For three years, with four different herders and many bands of sheep, Alberto lived in the mountains and desert for nine months at a time - 99% of the time alone with two dogs and the mountains. “It is a solitary life of long days and nights, but I made it,” he said. “These days, the herders have more access to phones and can call family and friends…but the solitude is still the same if you are alone in the mountains.”

By 1974, Alberto had become an American citizen and, soon thereafter, was hired by the USPS to be a postal worker. Although Alberto was making good money, he wasn’t happy and when a Spokane, Washington, life insurance company found out he could speak Basque, Spanish and English, they came looking for him. This moved Alberto into the world of investments, life insurance and retirement plans – a profession he is still in today. He eventually remarried, had two children and started his own office in 1984 in Twin Falls, soon becoming a Series 7 Licensed Advisor. In 1992, he started Uranga & Associates in Ketchum, doing stocks, bonds and estate planning, eventually changing the company name to Lasaii Benefits. (Lasaii is Basque for “take it easy,” “relax,” “all be will ok.”) Since 2003, Lasaii focuses only on IRA Real Estate where after advertising on airline magazines, now has customers in 37 states. He also taught seminars at the College of Southern Idaho in the Wood River Valley for ten years to prepare others for the field of finance. His daughter, Xole, and son, Sebi, are also involved in the family business.

The Trailing of the Sheep Festival is important to Alberto and he has been involved with the Festival for 17 years. “The legacy I am working for with the Festival is a Basque monument to not forget what the Basques did here. Without the sheep, we might not have Ketchum or Sun Valley. Others were here but they never stayed. The Basques did,” he concluded.