Hey there, Everything Summer Camp Aficionados!

For today’s Blog post we’re going back to our guy in the Shipping Department. Taking on the chief role in Receiving and other assistive duties, Derek has brought his great attitude and excellent work ethic to Everything Summer Camp for the last five years.

Last year I posted about Derek’s job. I told you about how he picks, packs, and prints orders along with handling most of Everything Summer Camp’s incoming freight. Whether the shipments be camping gear, equipment for all of our personalized products, or simply supplies for our office, it goes through Derek’s hands first.

Today, however, I want to give you a better idea of what life looks like for Derek when he isn’t at work. A close-knit little family, Derek lives with his sister and brother-in-law (which happens to be Ryan, the Manager of our Shipping Department).

Originally from Boyceville, Wisconsin, Derek moved here, to Boyd, when he heard about a job at Everything Summer Camp. Since then, he’s really grown to love the job as well as the town. And, only 60 miles from home, Derek returns home often enough to see his family and his parents’ dogs, a Yellow Lab and a Springer Spaniel.

As for fun, Derek’s family has a cabin up north in Bessemer—just past the Wisconsin border in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Derek and his family typically makes it up once a year, but the best vacation he’s ever been on was the one he made to Europe about eight years ago.

Through a Student Ambassador Program, he smiles to say it. “I went to France, Italy, and Malta.” Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, directly below Italy. “It was the time of my life,” he says without hesitation. “It was beautiful!”

In closing, Camp Fans, keep it in mind–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, Campers!

- John

Hey, Fans of Everything Summer Camp!

Almost exactly one year ago I posted about the manager of our Shipping Department and longtime employee of 11 years, Ryan. I told you all about what his job entails and how proud he is of the work environment that he’s established with the crew in Shipping—the camaraderie that they’ve formed.

Ryan works as hard as or even harder than what he expects out of his shipping crew and he’ll even sacrifice his sports radio to give his crew the morale boost of their varied musical choice. From Country to Kansas to Michael Jackson, the Shipping Department is always a hoppin’ place in the summer.

But today, we’ll delve a little deeper to get a picture of what Ryan’s life looks like outside of work. We won’t have to look too far since he lives just a mile away from the workplace here at Everything Summer Camp. A local resident of Boyd, Ryan lives with his lovely family: his wife, Stephanie, and their beautiful three-year-old daughter, Kaylee.

Ryan is originally from the nearby town of Cadott and even admits that, due to its closeness, he still commonly thinks of it as his hometown, despite the fact that he and Steph found their place and moved to Boyd a whole seven years ago.

Ryan’s little family enjoys annual visits between his parents as well as his parents-in-law. They often have get-togethers with Ryan’s extended family for holidays like Christmas and the Fourth of July. And, of course, Ryan enjoys his everyday life at home.

An avid (and rather skilled) golfer, Ryan is big into sports, closely following any of the major ones. He’s also hired on each season to be the coach of The Hornets, Cadott’s high school basketball team which he thoroughly enjoys.

As for Steph, “she doesn’t have any hobbies besides spending my money,” Ryan laughs, quickly following his statement with an eager, “No, no, no! Don’t put that. It’s just a sick joke!” Between being a devoted mother and loving wife, Steph squeezes in her commute to her job in Eau Claire, Wisconsin at Sacred Heart Hospital.

When Ryan’s not busy at work, coaching, or spending quality time with his family at home, he somehow finds time to play roles in such films as Remember the Titans and The Notebook.

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Fans of Everything Summer Camp!

It’ll have been a year ago tomorrow since I posted the first part of our employee biography series on Brian, the Operations Manager here at Everything Summer Camp. In that post I told you all about his job.

I told you about how he oversees our Camp Trunk Production, our Graphics Department, the Call Center, and the Shipping Department, not to mention a daily stack of paperwork that involves payroll, paying bills, an assortment of other matters. What I didn’t tell you is that Brian works at the same place as his two brothers…or that I’m one of them.

That’s right, while Everything Summer Camp isn’t really a family-run business, Mark (our Vice President), Brian, and myself all work at the same place. Needless to say we see each other regularly.

An avid football fan (and fantasy football prodigy), Brian typically has Mark and me over to his place for our traditional viewing of the Sunday games.

He lives in Lake Hallie, Wisconsin—nearby Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. Having journeyed from Milwaukee to Eau Claire, Brian embraced the quieter living style and settled in the very small Lake Hallie. “It’s a nice little town situated between two larger towns,” he says. “While I have all the benefits of living in a small town, I have very easy access to…say a movie theater.”

Besides his 8” Lego R2-D2, Brian doesn’t own any pets. He does however keep a vast collection of tech devices like incredibly optimized computers, tablets, e-readers, and impressive TVs. As I mentioned in last year’s post, Brian is our IT guy at Everything Summer Camp by default simply because he has such a great understanding of the electronic world.

As for vacationing, Brian doesn’t do a whole lot of travel. He’s made a number of trips to Vegas for business trips. “Then you always have to fit in the obligatory nonbusiness side of it.” He laughs.

He’s a big fan of the virtual trips he makes, however, using his virtual reality headset called the Oculus Rift. I’ve virtually walked across the Pantheon in Rome wearing his headset. He’s strolled through a fish market in Japan. He thinks technology like this will eventually replace schoolbooks.

As of late, Brian donated $25 toward LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter project to re-launch an online version of ‘Reading Rainbow’ for today’s youth. Brian absolutely LOVES to read and is happy to support something that will teach kids that same love for reading that he has.

That’s all for today, Camp Fans! Thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Blog Readers!

Continuing to delve deeper into the lives of the members in our Everything Summer Camp family, today I thought we’d check back in with Juliann, our Graphic Artist. Last time I told you about Juliann’s job. How it demanded a great deal of know-how, creativity, speed, and determination. And I also talked about her assortment of responsibilities.

But today I want to give you a better picture of Juliann—not just a look at what she does around the workplace, but rather, who she is OUTSIDE of work.

To start out, Juliann grew up on a farm in the small, small town of Independence, Wisconsin. She and her three sisters all had an enjoyable childhood on the farm, taking the occasional vacation to the Wisconsin Dells and family get-togethers at her Grandma’s house.

Now that they’ve all grown up, Juliann is more than just daughter and sister; she’s become the loving aunt of two nieces as well as the wife of her adoring husband, Brent.

These two have been together for the last five years and married for half of the time. They live in Chippewa Falls (a good middle ground between their initial homes) with their two dogs: Tanner, a chocolate lab and Winter, a Golden Retriever/Yellow Lab mix.

Juliann and Brent love finding time for vacations. They make annual trips to Mexico and try to get out on the water at Lake Wissota from time to time.

Lately, the two have been dedicating the majority of their free time working on home improvement projects that range from home remodeling to landscaping. Their current project has been building retaining walls for their lawn.

Always making improvements, we’re glad to have Juliann with us here at Everything Summer Camp.

Thanks for reading, Blog Fans. Till next time.

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

While we here at Everything Summer Camp make all of our personalized products right here in our own, local facility, it does not happen at our Main Building. We have 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.

You may recall me introducing you to Nate, the manager of our print shop, in one of our posts past. About a year ago I talked a little bit about him and a lot of what he does around the workplace. Today, however, I want to scratch a little more off the surface to give you a better picture of what makes Nate tick.

Well, Nate was born and raised in Chippewa Falls where he continues to live currently. A Chippewian(?) his entire life, Nate’s only recently come close to ‘living’ in another town as he stayed in Bloomer while undertaking the construction of his new house himself!

Nate’s wife Katie and their two boys Eli and Alex (two and six) as well as Ella, their chocolate Lab/Doberman, patiently resided in Bloomer for the time being while Nate would spend some nights with them in Bloomer and the rest of his nights in a camper that he purchased for sleeping at the construction site.

His family was extremely excited to enter their new castle this year around the end of January.

And now that Nate can actually sleep inside his house, he plans on putting the camper to good use for camping trips with his family. He has fond memories from when he was younger of his family’s annual fishing trips that they’d take at Whitefish Lake in Canada. He’d like to recreate a camping tradition with his family now.

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John