As a youngster, the farming and ranch way of life was only a very small piece of my life. Actually, only one week a year to be honest.  We had a family friend in Creston, Iowa who would let my brother and I stay with them to experience these efforts.  From choring cows, pigs, slinging hay, fixing fence and of course our favorite, riding the four-wheeler.  They taught us that the farming life was a fantastic way to live, work, and most importantly provide for yourself.  My family has always been a “do it yourself, if you want it done right” family, and time and time again the ranching industry has yet proved that statement to me.

Growing up I was, and still am super competitive. Not just in sports but all aspects of my life.  I have always strived for the next challenge.  After high school, I attended college for one year and quickly knew that was not going to be the route for me.  I then turned to what I knew best, construction.  My dad always had my brother and me fixing stuff around our past residences, which gave us many attributes to our current professions.   At the time of this writing, I have been in the electrical industry for almost 26 years.  For 11 years, I ran some of the largest (at that time) projects in the Des Moines metro area. For 13 years, I also managed a company and grew it from 16 employees to 200+.  Most recently, I have opened up and established my own company.  During all of that, my entrepreneurial mind set slowly started to grow.  I dabbled in flipping homes with my brother, then we started our families so that ended. Oh, and the 2008 market crash may have played into that!  After a few small start-up failures, my wife and I opened a Crossfit gym, which we successfully ran for six years and grew many great friendships (this is where I first met Sampson).  Although our electrical company has been by far the most successful, we weren’t quite content, I mean our days were only 99% full, so we started looking for that next challenge!   

My brother came to me one day and asked if I was still interested in running cattle.  He knew I was interested in the cattle business, as we had talked multiple times about it. At this point, I had purchased an 80-acre parcel near Chariton, IA with hopes of running cattle there. Unfortunately, the distance of the acreage to my residence were too far apart to make it work. Travis’ proposal to partner with Sampson was that challenge and opportunity that I had longed for since getting out of high school.  To say this was a life-long dream may be a stretch, but definitely a 25-year dream coming true before my eyes.   In February of 2020, we took the leap and created yet another business, Shnurman Parton Cattle Company.  We ventured out to western Iowa to make our first purchase off heifers and from then it has been nothing short of exciting!

The three of us and our families, are not afraid of hard work. In fact, its bred into us.  We don’t know any different.  We work our ass off in everything we do and we are proudly carrying that into the cattle industry now.  The opportunity to give you high quality cattle from our hand-picked and timely paired selections to produce the best genetics possible is our pleasure and our hope is that you are 100% satisfied.