Cayl Carpenter Named EWC’s 2025 Outstanding Alumni

When Cayl Carpenter arrived at Eastern Wyoming College in 2011 with little more than his golf clubs and big dreams, he never imagined how deeply those two years would shape the rest of his life.

Now, more than a decade later, the Casper-based entrepreneur and Natrona County High School graduate has been named EWC’s 2025 Outstanding Alumni Award recipient. The honor recognizes Carpenter’s exceptional achievements in business, steadfast commitment to community service and enduring connection to the college that helped launch his journey.

“I often refer to my time at EWC as quite possibly the funnest two years of my life,” Carpenter said. “Between golf, hunting, fishing, intramural sports and an outstanding teaching staff, it was a life-shaping experience.”

Carpenter earned all-region honors as a sophomore golfer and also took on unofficial assistant coaching duties—helping lead practices, run workouts and hold teammates accountable. At the same time, he maintained Phi Theta Kappa academic honors while working multiple jobs to support himself, including ranch work and operating the shot clock at games.

One of those jobs unexpectedly opened the door to a career. A ranch owner, impressed by Carpenter’s work ethic and drive, invited him to join a new business venture. Carpenter eventually put his education on hold and jumped into the business world.

After seven years working with the founders, he bought out one partner and kept the other, marking the start of what would become a diverse entrepreneurial portfolio. Today, Carpenter owns 12 businesses across the country, including companies in chemical handling, real estate and even a golf course.

His first business, a real estate venture launched in 2015 with his best friend, was a leap of faith.

“It took a while to make the leap due to fear of failure,” he said. “But once I had checked the math over and over, it became a matter of pushing through the fear and just doing it.”

His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is simple but powerful: “Do it. People get paralyzed by analysis. The worst you’ll lose is money and time, and you’ll learn from that.”

Carpenter’s entrepreneurial spirit is shared by his wife, Shayna, a fellow EWC alum and former Lancer basketball player, who owns Hand and Physical Therapy of Wyoming, operating four clinics statewide. The couple, now raising two sons, Briggs and Baron, remain active in their community and continue to support EWC athletics.

“I am extremely honored and humbled to receive this award,” Carpenter said. “EWC will forever be in my heart, and I hope to continue seeing its success in shaping youth throughout the coming years.”

Eastern Wyoming College celebrates Cayl Carpenter not only for his business accomplishments, but as a devoted family man, mentor and Lancer for life.

Carpenter will receive the Outstanding Alumni award on Thursday, May 8, at the Alumni reception, hosted by the EWC Foundation.  The reception will be held from 5-7 p.m. in the Career and Technical Education Center, Franklin Smith Commons, on the Torrington campus.