The new Information Technology Director for Greene County has had a whirlwind of a life.

Justin Bristow was born in Algona and before starting high school, his family moved to Fort Dodge, where he graduated from Fort Dodge High School. He attended the University of Northern Iowa for a while and he was also in a band, performing around the state and Chicago, until he moved to Indiana. After living near Ball State University, he moved back to Iowa to be with his family.

Bristow says he was a paid musician all throughout his 20s and most of his 30s, while also working several customer service jobs. Then, after him and his wife had their first child, he became a stay-at-home dad, before going to work for Wells Fargo during the mortgage crisis. Then, after moving to Grimes and following the birth of their second child, he was a stay-at-home dad again for a couple of years before playing with a band from Des Moines while also working at Lowe’s. 

It wasn’t until later on in life that Bristow says he encountered a life in the technology sector. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio his friend needed help explaining a program that included binary code, something he was very familiar with.

“Because being a techy guy and a math nerd, that lines up like that. I said, ‘This is just binary,’ and I have a tattoo of binary on my wrist. So (I said to myself) I think I can explain this pretty well, and he said, ‘You should go into networking, I like you might like it.’”  

Bristow worked for netINS as tech support and then with the development team. After earning his Cisco Certified Network Association certification, he applied for and was hired as the Network Administrator for the Indianola School District, where he worked for ten years. Bristow points out that life took yet another turn and his wife got her dream job as the assistant director for the Blanden Art Museum in Fort Dodge. Bristow took a job as a system analyst with Iowa Central Community College, before he saw the job opening for the Greene County IT Director, and he thought he would be a great fit.

“I bet it’s a one man job. So that’s a lot of ground floor opportunity with leadership combined. So stuff I’d already been doing at Indianola, combined with the leadership, it’s all mine. I don’t have a director saying, ‘Well, we can do this, this and this.’”   

Bristow is happy as the IT Director and is working on installing a system to manage the county’s devices on the backend and upgrading the server infrastructure. He also hit the ground running as the Greene County Courthouse is currently being renovated with a new HVAC system and he has been the individual to make sure that each county department has what it needs when they temporarily move to another location within the courthouse. 

Bristow still feeds his musician side, with a request from his daughter to learn the Billy Joel song, “The Piano Man” on guitar so he could play with her, while playing the harmonica. The Greene County Supervisors approved hiring Bristow on November 2, 2025.