Pat Hanford
“Somehow, when I was 8 years old I got it in my head that I was gonna start a boy’s home. That is my long term goal, that’s what keeps me movin’. If not I’d be sittin’ on a beach in Mexico or dead. Years ago I worked for a place where people were stealing from the company, I could see that was a dead end so I quit. I bounced from there to work in a feedlot for a dairy and that was how I was gonna finance the boy’s home. I wasn’t going to ask for the money from the government, I was gonna earn it. Life happened, I had a baby, and I went to work for another farmer and really enjoyed that work. But, I can’t start a boys’ home off of $10 per hour. Then September 11th happened and that pissed me off, my country is under attack so I joined the army. I figured if my country wants me….I will go. I had just bought some rentals, that was another way I was going to fund the boy’s home. I was medevaced out from Iraq and was pretty messed up, I spent some time in a dark place. I kept thinking about the idea about the boy’s home and that kept me here. At that point I realized that this little ol’ world isn’t about me. I slowly started getting better, the rest of my unit came home from Iraq and that helped. I was going through a divorce and my doctors didn’t want me to work at all. They put me on 100% disability, but I had to do something, so I fought that. There were a lot of key people in my life, people helped me find work, helped me buy into a company. I now have my company paid off, and have added machines and territories to my work. I have 4 guys working for me during the day and I do the commercial work at night. Next month I am purchasing the company where I bought the machines and I will start manufacturing them here. The lord has blessed me over and over again, so I can build the boys home. With the combination of the rentals and the business, I now have a good plan. The boys will be working on their own farm, they will learn to raise and produce the food that they eat. I’d like to see cows, a butcher shop, a mechanic’s shop, and a lot of troubled kids getting help.”
#agriculture #veteran
