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COURTESY PHOTO
The Priefert family is celebrating 60 years of being a leader in Texas’ favorite businesses: ranch and rodeo.
Marvin Priefert– the man who started the Priefert legacy– made history in 1964. That was the year he invented the first gliding-action, fully-opening headgate. This invention greatly helps with tasks like giving medication to cattle. Marvin went on to patent this invention, as well as many others. A few of the most notable ones are the grain wagon and the labor-saving mechanical hay loader.
Bill Priefert, CEO of Priefert and son of Marvin, fondly recalled his father, “I call him a mechanical genius. He truly was. He liked to work till midnight and he liked to think in the morning. You’d think he wasn’t working, but he’d sit at the breakfast table with coffee and his mind was turning.”
Bill explained that his father overcame many obstacles to get the business running. The family originally started things in Nebraska before moving to Texas. When asked what he learned from his father, Bill said that while he didn’t have a knack for invention, his father taught him what was needed to run the Priefert family business, “Have a goal. Make a plan. Take the steps. You can accomplish anything, but you gotta be single-minded. You stay with it. It’s amazing what can happen. Above all, don’t quit. I failed nine times out of ten, but look at what we got here.”