Bill Rishel
Bill Rishel was raised on a livestock and crop farm near York, Pennsylvania. Bill Rishel and his family moved to North Platte, NE in 1975. Along with his wife Barb, Bill started Rishel Livestock Services, Inc., a sales management company, in 1977. He also began developing Rishel Angus, a registered herd of Angus cattle. Rishel’s herd genetics have played a dominate role in the artificial breeding companies American Breeders Service, Accelerated Genetics, and Select Sires.
Bill is very involved in the livestock industry, having held a variety of leadership positions in many organizations. He began his journey with the American Angus Association and Certified Angus Beef where he sat on their Board of Directors for five years. Rishel was then Chairman of the Certified Angus Beef Board of Directors in 1995. More recently, Rishel has been involved with the Nebraska Cattlemen serving as their president in 2010. He has also been involved with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Nebraska Cattlemen Research and Education Foundation, Ag Builders of Nebraska, NCTA statewide Advisory Council, NCBA working group on beef grading, Beef Focus Group at US MARC and 2015 Beef Industry Long Range Planning Task Force.
Rishel Angus is nationally and internationally recognized and has received special recognition for their commitment to identification and improvement of carcass merit. Bill has kept performance records on his herd and has identified outstanding seed stock for their operation from the beginning. Rishel Angus continues to be a leading breeder in terms of their commitment to identifying the carcass merit of cattle out of a belief that the real focus of the breeding program needed to be the acceptance of its product by consumers. Because of this, many of the leading individuals for carcass merit in the Angus breed carry the Rishel Angus, B/R, prefix.
Bill graduated in 1967 from Penn State University with a B.S. in Animal Science and an M.S. in Animal Breeding in 1969. Bill and his wife have three daughters who all attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Jill and Ron Wolforth family reside in The Woodlands, TX; Joy and Tyler Brandt family reside in Ankeny, IA; and Judy and Ryan Terwilliger family reside in Lincoln, NE.
The Block and Bridle Club is part of the Animal Science Department within the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at UNL.