Chad Brown
Hometown: Republic, Mo.
Family: Wife, Brenda; children, Hannah, 17; and Brady, 12
In town: Chad Brown owns and operates Plumbline Services. For more than a decade he has worked repairing, replacing and installing doors and windows for customers throughout the Ozarks.
“I was fortunate enough that one of the companies I subcontract to sent me to service school and installation school. And because of that I have knowledge that apparently not many installers have,” Chad said. He was one of the first installers in the area to receive certification with the American Architectural Manufacturers Association.
In the country: Chad Brown grew up on a farm near Wichita, Kan., learning about agricultural from his father, who was a veterinarian. Chad’s family owned Quarter Horses and raised Simmental cattle.
“Strangely enough, in four years we only had one heifer, so we just said that we raised seedstock bulls,” Chad said with a chuckle. During his childhood, Chad had the chance to observe new innovations in the cattle industry. “My dad did a lot in the early years with embryo transfer and we did some of that at our place. So I got to see some stuff that was a little out of the norm for a farm kid.”
On their Kansas farm the Browns also boarded Quarter Horses.
“We would have people board their horses who didn’t have time to ride them and they would ask me to ride them and get them out,” Chad said. “As a kid I never really had a broke horse so I had to learn to train my own horses. And one thing lead to another and I started to ride horses and train them.”
After college, Chad trained horses professionally for several years, including a stint with renowned Quarter Horse breeder, Sally Brown, in Maple Plain, Minn. “That was a good experience for me. She sent me to ride with some topnotch trainers.”
After a move to Missouri in the mid-2000s the horse market plummeted causing Chad to pursue a different career path.
Chad and his family recently built a home on 10 acres near Republic, Mo., where they are creating a hobby farm. Right now their farm includes a couple of Quarter Horses and a crossbred bull. They plan to start raising sheep using rotational grazing and hope to eventually own more cattle.
