At the age of 16, Judy Wagner and her seven younger siblings lost their father in a December tractor accident on their Western Montana ranch.
“That Christmas, I learned firsthand that the cows don’t know it’s Christmas,” Wagner remembered. “So, my marketing and how I think about things started there. It’s not rocket science: You have to know what needs to be done.”
She graduated from Montana State University and was working as a county agent when Steve Geisler of Idaho’s Cowboy Cordage asked if Wagner was interested in doing business together, marketing and selling ropes.
“My dad didn’t really live long enough to teach us
