A Chat With David Isham, president/CEO, National Roper’s Supply

I really stayed most active in the mail order side of the company until the last two to four years. I met a young guy at the trade show market in Denver who was wearing a shirt that said Teamroper.com. This was right at the beginning five years ago of everyone’s fear of the Internet. So seeing this guy, I immediately thought this sounded like competition. I introduced myself to him and found out he was hoping to become the Internet version of National Roper’s Supply. I invited him down to Decatur in the guise of a possible partnering, but honestly I was so impressed with him I wanted to try and get him to work for me. So I brought he and his wife down to Decatur and offered him a job as the key guy on the mail order side of the business. He was also an active roper and horseman. Over the last four years he’s taken over more of the responsibility for the catalog, and this past year I promoted him to general manager of the catalog.