I could have spent all day just looking at all the cool reptiles. I guess from that day on I knew that would keep reptiles as pets, never really imagining that one day it would be the way I make my living.

When I was about eight years old there was a patch of woods by my childhood home where we would go to catch Garter snakes. A group of about ten of us would go out and turn boards and flip rocks...the other kids would  take one home...I would always take ten or twelve. I should have known then that I had the bug.

Although my Mom was somewhat understanding of my obsession with snakes, she was not so supportive in my youth and would not allow me to keep any reptiles in the house. So in the summer I would create habitats for them in my garage, and often by the end of the summer, when I would have to let them go back into the woods, I would have more then twenty different animals, all with names of course. It was always a tough day when I would have to let the animals, that had become my pets for a few months, go back into the wild. I often joke about my Mom being the reason for my collection now...if she'd had just let me get it out of my system when I was a kid maybe I'd be a doctor or something. The truth is, I would never want to do anything except what I do now.

Finally when I turned sixteen I was able to keep my first pet snake in the house. I worked at a local Pet Shop and I bought a baby Burmese Python (named Monty of course). Shortly after that I bought a Ball Python (Axle). And then the flood gates opened and I have been buying ever since. Later that year I met Mark and Kim Bell, they had an awesome collection of snakes in their basement about ten miles from where I lived. They actually bred snakes!!! I was floored and I couldn't get enough knowledge about it. I'm sure that I bugged them more then I even realize, but they always welcomed me there and I will always appreciate all that they did for me. By time I was Seventeen I hatched my first Cornsnakes, the first babies ever for me! Then later that year I had bought Albino Burmese (still $1250 each...ouch!). I bred them together, and bred the male albino to a couple huge female normal Burms as well. And bam!...that's how things really got started. I produced 22 Albinos and about 30 pairs of Hets that year. Albinos where still $750 each and hets were $750 a pair...not bad for a kid in his Mom's basement. Ever penny I made, and most of what I made at my job, went right back into buying more animals.

When I was Nineteen I meet Lori, my wife, and she was afraid of snakes and didn't even want to come into my basement. Slowly, as we where dating, she started to get used to them and then even started helping with them. Now, 18 years later, she is more knowledgeable than almost anyone I know. She's the glue that keeps thing together around here. Without her I would probably would still be in my Mom's basement breeding Burms!

We've come a long way in the last 18 years, and almost three years ago we decided to take the next step and build a state-of-the-art facility that could handle our current capacity, and that we would feel was big enough for expansion (yeah, right!). We put up a 15,000 square foot building and started moving in. Our lives really changed...for the first time we really felt like a genuine business. I always looked at my business as an over-blown hobby until now, but when we got in here we really had to start to look at things as a business. Don't get me wrong, it's still about the animals, but we have to pay the bills and pay our staff. This took some getting used to, but  now I think it was the best thing that could have happened. We're trying to take the industry to new levels. It will continue to be a learning process, but I think we're making great strides. The funny thing is that all that room for expansion, well, we're pretty much out of space again. Do we grow into a bigger place?? Not for now, but you never know what the future holds. I hope you'll all be along for the ride, it should be a lot of fun!

And as always we know that none of this could have happened without the support of our customers and fellow breeders. I can't express how much you have all meant to me.

Thanks,
Brian (BHB)