10/03/2024
Bryan Williams is known for his site, JudgingPro.com. But I’m sure not a lot of people have heard his full story.
“My dad was a horseshoer. We were just a typical small North Missouri family trying to scrape by in existence. My earliest memories take me back to the stockyard with my dad. Livestock have always been around since my childhood. As I got older, my dad did a little switch; he got into the show cattle. We purchased a herd of purebred Shorthorns; that was what got me into the show ring.”
Bryan knew what he wanted his end goal to be.
“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so I figured out a way pretty quickly to get to college. I wasn’t big enough or fast enough to go play football. So, I told myself I had to start taking livestock judging seriously to make it. At that point in my life, I wanted to be an Ag Teacher, and I eventually ended up getting a scholarship to judge in college. That's where my life started to kick into gear.”
Williams Luck came for Bryan; an accident changed the trajectory of his life.
“My people don’t know what happened to me after I finished senior college. I was fully set to go to Oklahoma State, had an apartment, and was enrolled in all my classes. Then Williams Luck struck. It was late; I was headed out to the barn after working all day on the golf course. It was summer, and I was getting ready for senior college, so I would work mowing during the day and break horses in the night to make ends meet. The horses were kept in the same barn as my sheep. What was a normal night as I headed out to ride the colts…”
Bryan had to rethink what direction he was taking.
“During that time, as I was laying in the hospital bed, I got into my head and was reflecting on what I wanted to do with my life. At that point, I knew I wanted to be a judge and an Ag teacher. But I wanted to stay in my home state. The decision was made right there in the hospital bed. I went to Northwest Missouri College; it was a rundown school but was the best school for agriculture in the area. I never made it to Oklahoma State, and I never got to judge in senior college.“
Judge Pro was born, or should we say taken under Bryan's wing.
“Chip reached out to me and was wondering if I wanted to buy the company. He knew where my passions were and figured it would be a good fit. Essentially, I sat down and crunched some numbers and thought about it. A specific moment comes to mind. I was sitting at my desk at school and got out a sticky note and wrote a pros and cons list. It was more a list of whether I would be an asset to this company if I bought it.”
Bryan felt a little over his head at first.
“For the first year of owning Judging Pro, all I did was answer angry phone calls and disappointing messages saying the content needs to be better. First off, I didn’t know anything about websites, social media, or videography. I wrote those 3 things down and decided I had some stuff to learn.”
In the end, Bryan ended up finding his dream life.
“I've been incredibly lucky that people have been loyal to what we do. I couldn't be more in love with my life, my dream life. As a young person, you don’t know that there is a dream life out there that you know even exists yet. 17-year-old me and 25-year-old me would never have believed this was possible.”
