A Traverse City area native, McKenzie (Hartman) Gallagher, CAS ’05, loves the views, the people and the community of the lakeside city she calls home. Deeply rooted in the region, she and her husband are raising their four children here and have started a business, Rove Estate Winery, on the Gallagher family farm. Over the years, she has established strong ties to Traverse City, creating a foundation that has helped forge a path in pursuit of her dreams.

“I feel really grateful that I live in one of the most beautiful states in the country, and that I am able to raise my kids in a nonconventional way on our farm,” McKenzie says. “To be able to extend our passion for farming to cultivating award winning wines, is truly the most fulfilling life I could've imagined.”

Planting Seeds for Success

Graduating from OU runs in the Hartman household. With McKenzie’s father, aunt and cousins all alumni, it was a natural decision for both McKenzie and her sister to move downstate to also attend.

“I lived on campus, so I was completely submerged,” McKenzie says of her time at Oakland. “That really gave me a sense of community and connection. And I loved that. Some of my very best friends to this day were the ones I met during my first semester freshmen year. It was my home.”

McKenzie came to the university with her sights set on becoming a doctor. She enrolled in a premedical curriculum, focusing on biology and chemistry. During her junior year, though, McKenzie realized the world of medicine was not suited for her, and she switched her major to sociology. This program nurtured her love of learning about people, and her goals honed in on a career working with and helping others.

A family of alumni: McKenzie alongside her father, Randy Hartman, M.D., CAS '77, and sister, Bryanne (Hartman) Delzio, CAS '06.

“It’s such a magical time,” McKenzie recalls fondly of her time at OU. “It’s that time period in your life when you have no fear, no reservations. You talk to different kinds of people and learn about different things. I’m so grateful I took advantage of every aspect of student life on campus.”

“It allowed me to figure myself out,” she continues. “And that’s an empowering feeling to determine your own schedule and your work-life balance. I don't think I knew at the time, but that was the beginning of planting those seeds of who I wanted to be. And I definitely think that throughout life, you just continue to water those seeds and perfect it.”

After graduation, McKenzie stayed “down state” for several years, finding work as an underwriter at a local bank. But the 2008 banking crisis forced her back to Traverse City to start a new path. She enrolled at Davenport University for a Master of Business Administration, and shortly after met her future husband, Creighton, also a Traverse City area native. Unbeknownst to her, this turn of events would vastly reshape the trajectory of her life as she began to forge a new path: vineyard farming.

“I never would’ve thought in a million years that I would fall in love with a farmer and open a winery,” McKenzie confesses.

Establishing Roots in the Region

The Gallagher family is well known in the Traverse City area, with farming roots that date back nearly 140 years. They were established cherry farmers, and Creighton knew and worked on his family’s orchards. Farming is in his blood.

“They're one of the first Centennial farm families,” McKenzie explains about her husband’s family. “I did not have farming in my background. But, I fell in love with a farmer and suddenly his dream became our dream. It felt serendipitous.”

McKenzie and husband, Creighton, roaming the family vineyard.

McKenzie quickly became mesmerized by Creighton and the farming lifestyle, and the two married about a year after they met. They began to share a dream of one day owning a vineyard, so McKenzie focused her MBA thesis on a business plan to start a winery. The two worked together to come up with a solid foundation they hoped would one day bear fruit. In 2011, the young Gallagher couple was offered the chance to purchase a large portion of Creighton’s family farm: 100 acres of old cherry trees that were no longer producing. They jumped at the opportunity, ready to take hold of their dreams.

“We were at a crossroads: should we plant more cherries because that's what we know how to do or should we follow our hearts and do something that we don't know much about, which is grapes,” McKenzie says. “I guess we were adventurous.”