Winning in extra innings

The young Burlington, Colo., rancher says, repeatedly even, that he was nothing less than blessed when eight years earlier he was given the opportunity to buy a ranch.

He was 24 then…I am 24 now, I thought, processing this. How in the heck will I ever be that successful?

But as we visited with Braden, I quickly realized it wasn’t just a chance opportunity. Clearly the old saying, “hard work and determination pay off in the end” had come into play.

Literally.

In his younger years, Braden was going to be a baseball star. But, as it happens, life threw a curveball and an arm injury sidelined the pitcher. Having grown up in northwestern Colorado, he returned home where all the hard work he had put into baseball was redirected.

He came back with a vengeance to be successful at something. Braden worked 24-hour days on his custom haying operation and helped with his family’s 300-head cow-calf operation.

“I saw a sign, a ranch for sale, and it came with 9,000 acres,” he says. “I went and talked to everybody I possibly could. That day, I even told my brother, I don’t care who or what, I’m going to try to make this happen.”

Braden tried everything—even talked to the seller about financing—but he didn’t see how the opportunity could work in his favor. The day the ranch sold, curiosity led Braden and his dad to the auction and initially, what looked like another one of life’s curveballs, slowly became a changeup for Braden.

The only bid came from an investor out of California.

“The guy that was selling the ranch, had worked his whole life,” Braden says. “It was a multi-generation ranch. It was painful for him to see an investor coming in to just buy it.”

The seller approached the young man’s table and said, “Braden, if you really think you want to do this, I’ll finance it. You’ve got to come up with the downpayment but I’ll finance this deal.”

“It was really the opportunity of a lifetime,” Braden said many times as we visited with him that day last spring.

His quest for success didn’t end there. Maybe it was the construction management degree and the systematic way everything has to fit together. Maybe it was the fact that, as a baseball pitcher, part of the job was to record and analyze statistics. Either way, while Braden still uses his God-given cowsense to manage and sort his cattle, he also relies on an Excel spreadsheet.

DNA testing lets him see on paper how his cattle are performing. Artificial insemination gives him freedom to correct problem areas by custom mating. Being able to collect data is a priority at Schaal Cattle Company.

“I’ve seen results,” Braden says. “It’s not all on paper, I’ve actually seen results with some kill data, average daily gain and weaning weights,” which can all be found at the click of a button, thanks to electronic (EID) tags.

No, I realized at the end of our visit. It wasn’t just luck. This guy has worked his butt off for this.   

As a college student in my final semester and preparing to face the world, it’s refreshing to look back on that day. To see you can always have big dreams, but when they fall through, that doesn’t mean the end. You never know when the opportunity of a lifetime will approach your table.

-Hannah

Hannah Johlman’s lifelong bookworm tendencies and love for writing, as well as deep appreciation for good beef, have brought her back as the Black Ink team’s spring intern. The now senior, studying ag communications and animal sciences at Kansas State University claims Sheridan, Wyo., as home. 

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