Hey there, Everything Summer Camp Aficionados!

Today I want to tell you about another great employee whom Everything Summer Camp appreciates having onboard. He’s our guy in the shipping/receiving department, Derek. Working alongside Ryan—the manager in shipping as well as Derek’s brother-in-law—and the rest of Ryan’s crew.

Not only does Derek bear enough of the duties that everyone else has in shipping, like picking, packing, and printing orders, but he also handles the majority of Everything Summer Camp’s incoming freight whether the shipments be stock items, equipment for all of our personalized products, or simply overhead for our office building.

Derek, at 24, has been giving Everything Summer Camp 110% for the last five years. Not just a hard worker but a smart worker too, Derek excels at his job on a day-to-day basis.

When discussing his favorite part about the job, Derek says it’s simply the “work flow.” He loves the way the job makes everyone come together, give it their all, and see the job through to the end of the day. The tasks of the job aren’t always the most challenging, but making everything happen in the right synchronicity is another story.

“The job itself isn’t that hard,” says Derek. But still, he enjoys the work. “I keep on coming back, right?” he says with a smile. Derek is normally kept on with part-time hours during Everything Summer Camp’s slower time of the year.

He’s certainly one of our employees who knows what a good time summer camp can be. He fondly recalls his days at Bible Camp with a good laugh over “this kid Mark who snored so loud he sounded like a kid choking,” and kept everyone up for hours after lights out. “It was a good time,” he says.

So, remember, Camp Fans! The next time you get an order from Everything Summer Camp, it very well could have been Derek who packed it for you! Until next time!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

For today’s blog post I want to tell you about the manager of our shipping department, and longtime employee of ten years—Ryan. As you might imagine, our shipping department is a very busy place—this time of year especially. But thanks to Ryan and his orchestration with the crew in shipping, you’re sure to get your quality camp gear from Everything Summer Camp on time!

The mark of a good manager, Ryan knows that he’s got to work as hard as or even harder than what he expects out of his crew in shipping. When an order is placed at Everything Summer Camp, it goes through our system and, after any personalized items on the order are made, the order goes to shipping.

There, Ryan prints out each and every order that needs to go out the door for the day. He and his crew will then do what they call “picking an order”. Orders containing camp gear that doesn’t require our own production, gets “picked” from our stocked products. The order is then looked over to make sure that the order is complete and ready to be shipped out to you.

Ryan and his crew then pack the order, box them up, print the shipping labels, and see them off into the back of a UPS truck. Ryan’s been doing this for the last ten years, so he’s sort of a master of his art at this point.

What he loves most about his job is hearing back from “customers who are thrilled

with our product.” He’s also very proud of the work environment that he’s created with his crew and the camaraderie that they’ve established. A giant sports fan, and a local resident of Boyd (the home of Everything Summer Camp), Ryan lives nearby with his lovely family of three. His wife, himself, and their beautiful little girl, Kaylee.

Hey, Blog Buddies!

Today I’d like to tell you about a guy who mostly remains behind the scenes. But, boy is he essential to Everything Summer Camp running smoothly on a day-to-day basis—he’s our Operations Manager, Brian. Operations Manager is his technical title, but really he gets his hands in everything.

Brian oversees every single order that you, our customer, place. From the time your order comes into our system, to the time we ship it out the door, Brian is guiding it the whole way.

As our Operations Manager, he oversees our Camp Trunk Production, our Graphics Department, the Call Center, and the Shipping Department. Aside from that, Brian also handles all of Everything Summer Camp’s general office paperwork, paying the company bills, doing payroll, and so on.

It’s a lot to handle. But then, that’s also his favorite part about his job. He thrives on the diversity that his job hands him. He’s been working here for the last eight years in which his job has changed a lot. Not that his position changed so much as it just continues to evolve. From paying the bills to developing production procedures, Brian’s job always offers him diversity.

Aside from what his position entails, Brian is also the IT guy around here. Since he’s probably the only one at Everything Summer Camp who can set up a closed-circuit network between two locations, he’s our IT guy by default. You can tell just by looking around his office that he knows computers; he’s got wires coming out of the ceiling and computer chips sitting out in a shoebox.

Brian has no doubt that an old job of his at a sporting goods store gave him a good background in sales and office management that has helped him a long way in his current position.

“I love my job,” says Brian.

Until next time, Campers.

- John

Hey, Camp Folks!

Say hello to Nate—our man in charge of all the personalized products we offer at Everything Summer Camp. While we make all of our personalized products right here in our own, local facility, it does not happen at our Main Building. Everything Summer Camp has two facilities which are very close to each other. Just a few blocks away and over the railroad tracks is our second building—the print shop..

Manager of the print shop, Nate has many responsibilities to tend to on a daily basis which includes overseeing production, keeping an eye out for quality control in running production, product development, scheduling, and purchasing. Needless to say, Nate’s a busy man—but always good for a laugh or interesting conversation over lunch.

For the last three years, with a knack and strong passion for product development, Nate has enjoyed his employment with Everything Summer Camp, appreciating the variety that his work creates for him.

There are many processes that he has to know—after all, all our Name Labels, Lid Skinz, and the majority of our camp clothing is printed at the shop. The print shop is an impressive place with a carousel for screen printing along with an industrial dryer, two embroidery machines, a Direct to Garment (DTG) printer, two heat presses, and three wide-format printers and a whole lot more.

But Nate knows how worth it all his hard work is, creating quality products that summer campers will cherish for the summer and many years to come. He too spent a summer or two at a Christian Bible Camp where he really sharpened his skills at Ping-Pong as well as Table Shuffleboard.

Nate likes to keep work fun as he enjoys creating his own lyrics for existing songs such as “Hey, Don’t Eat Those Burritos,” (originally “ La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens). And on the days when even song parodies don’t do get him through the day, he at least goes home to his wonderful wife, Katie and his two sons, Alex and Eli.

That’s all for today, everybody. Until next time.

 - John

Hey, Summer Camp Fans!

It is my great pleasure to virtually introduce you to our Receptionist here at Everything Summer Camp. Meet Missy. Missy is the first person you’ll see when you walk into our Main Building. Warm, and incredibly friendly, Missy is always there to help.

Hired on last year for our seasonal help in the Call Center, Missy showed exceptional skills in customer service where she handled inbound calls and the infrequent “problem order.” Soon after last year’s busy season came to an end, she was asked to stay at Everything Summer Camp year-round as the Receptionist.

She still answers customer calls when they go to overflow, so if you call us on a busy day to order a trunk or a duffel bag, there’s a chance you’ll get to talk to her on the phone.

Missy’s favorite part about her job is the variety of duties it entails. From handling camp clothing to checking in all of the cool personalized items like name labels that we make in our own facility through to shipping, Missy truly plays a vital role in making sure that your orders containing customized items are sent out to you just the way that you wanted it!

Aside from handling orders, Missy also handles important spreadsheets upon more important spreadsheets concerning information about our new system after all the changes we’ve made to our Web site as well as all of our sales reports and receiving all applications that we get for Everything Summer Camp.

Missy never did go to summer camp, though she did something much braver! She was a Girl Scout Leader for girls in the first grade. How did she get involved in that? Because Missy’s job stretches beyond her work here at Everything Summer Camp.

Missy goes home to her farm where she lives with her husband, Mike, and their three kids—Chelsea, Morgan, and Luke.

Our thanks goes out to Missy for her fine work as well as all of you readers for getting to know us better at Everything Summer Camp, one person at a time.

- John