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

Hey, Everything Summer Camp Fans!

Last year I introduced you, our fellow Blog readers, to Missy, our Receptionist at Everything Summer Camp. I told you about how she’s the first face you’ll see when you walk into our Main Building and how she’s a very warm and friendly presence in our office. Missy is always there to help.

But today, we’ll delve a little deeper to get a picture of what Missy’s life is like outside of work. We won’t have to look too far outside of work, however, since Missy lives just past Boyd, the home of Everything Summer Camp.

She’s quite familiar with the town as it’s the place where she was born and raised. “Yep, I grew up in the bar down the road and I married my high school sweetheart,” says Missy. They spent some time living around the state in Rice Lake as well as Wausau. It wasn’t until the two got married that they moved back to Boyd and into the family farm where Mike grew up.

They have three children—Chelsea, who is now attending UW Oshkosh; Morgan, a junior in high school; and Luke who’s in the eighth grade. Between Morgan, who plays basketball and softball and Luke, who’s interested in football, baseball, basketball, and trying out for track this year, they spend a lot of time at sporting events.

Altogether, they have 78 pets: that’s two dogs, six cats, and 70 cows. Fortunately for the family it’s only the dogs, Zoe (a black lab) and Braun (a Great Pyrenees, named after the Brewer) that are ever inside.

While they don’t travel very often, they usually find some time at least once out of the year to go find a hotel somewhere and just get away for a weekend or so. Her kids are big fans of waterparks. “I just think that any time you can get out of winter in Wisconsin and see some sun, it’s a good time.”

That’s all for today, Folks! Hope you enjoyed getting to know Missy a little better.