Richard Hazel, Hazel Bros. H Bar Beefmasters, Canton, Texas, bought his first cattle about 30 years ago. "It turned out to be sort of a scam deal," he says. "I found the fellow who was managing the cattle for several of us who had purchased the registered Beefmasters, was selling off a few at a time, without our knowledge. When I learned of it, I went and picked up my cattle and brought them home. I've been in the Beefmaster business on my place ever since."

Richard's passion is "performance." He feels cattle owners, especially registered or seedstock breeders, should be breeding for the "optimum rather than the maximum" in a breed. He says "If bred for the optimum, that gives the best opportunity, especially for the small operator, to be profitable." He first became interested in the "optimum" when introduced to ultrasound. "I knew the Angus people were way ahead of most other breeds by using ultrasound and I wanted to make my Beefmasters more able to compete with them in the meat production area. Beefmaster and other breeds have to compete with functional traits as well as performance traits," according to Richard.

CattleMax became his record-keeping choice in 2001 when he purchased CattleMax version 1. He has upgraded until he now uses CattleMax CS for his record keeping on his registered Beefmaster operation. His favorite feature of CattleMax is the contacts area of the program. He uses it extensively for marketing his cattle, with over 1100 contacts in his list, which he can merge into an email program.

He also says CattleMax helps him to keep records readily available, allowing him to select and sort animals by the data he's collected and recorded in the program. As an example, he says he may choose to keep a heifer as a replacement, or sell her as a replacement heifer, if she has a lower weaning weight than his standard for his heifers, but she has exceptional ultrasound data and all other factors are acceptable.

Richard recommends CattleMax to many other cattle raisers. "If they are interested in a good, easy to use, record keeping program for their cattle, CattleMax is the program," he says. "The majority of cattle raisers are in the same category as me-'computer challenged.'"

"I like horses, cowboys and cowboy movies, but I am not one. I like cattle and hope I can say I'm a Cattleman, and if I can say that, CattleMax has helped me to be one."

Richard's interest in helping the small registered Beefmaster breeders market their cattle has extended to a website, http://www.bpbregistry.com. He set up the website to kind of be a model for small breeders in marketing their cattle and provide information on the Beefmaster breed. He invites you to visit the website.