Proud Daughter

It's not very often that I as their child get to have moments of being completly proud of my folks, but this week is definitly the exception. First, my dad. He worked at a company in the cities for over 15 years, but a little over two years ago, the company shut down. My dad being the guy that he is was offered a job at one of their competetors the very next day and has worked there since. Within the last week, the new company that he works at merged with another company. He wasn't too worried about his job, but there have been quite a few layoffs with the merger. So why am I proud of him? The new company put out a newsletter the first day of the merge and here is an article from it:

Mitch Greunke,
Customer Service
Representative,
Shakopee, MN:
When Mitch Greunke begins the 48-mile drive from his home in Hudson, Wisconsin each day, he has one thing on his mind: his customers. One of these customers is a grocery account Mitch has served for more than 12 years, the relationship beginning even before he came to work for Shakopee and before the client became a Shakopee customer. This company’s Production Manager says they consider Mitch to be part of their own team. “We don’t even
think of him as a supplier,” the Production Manager explains. “His knowledge of our program and his dedication to our success is extremely unique. Mitch not only ensures that the Shakopee folks do things correctly; he makes sure that we do things correctly as well.” Mitch is a hands-on CSR and personally monitors the quality of each press run. He also helps his customers come up with cost-effective and innovative ways to stand out in the marketplace … to date, he’s been involved with more than 60 new product configurations. Not only that, he personally delivers office copies to the company’s headquarters each Tuesday, and sometimes, on his way home from work, additional store copies when area stores are running low. “Mitch does a fantastic job of explaining the customer’s expectations to me. His communication is crystal-clear and he pays attention to the quality I produce for them. Mitch makes it very easy for me to do my job,”
notes Press Operator Hal Brothers. Mitch sees it this way, “I am just the front man for this whole process. I have a great team that stands behind me and we have a very enabling environment that allows me to coordinate an important service for a very important customer.” Customer service is clearly more than just a job for this CSR; it’s something he loves doing. For that reason, working with Mitch is a pleasure for customers and his fellow employees, alike.

How great is that?! His boss wrote it about him, and for anyone who has ever met my dad, you know that this is exactly who he is. I am so proud of him, and so thrilled that he is getting the recognition that he deserves after all his years of hard work!

Now onto my mom. For the first time since Kris was born, she was back at work today! She had decided a few months ago that it was time for her to start looking because the three of us were older and her plan had always been to go back to work. Within a week of looking, she had an interview and now is in charge of managing social work cases for the elderly in our neighboring counties. I am so proud of her that after 21 years of being a stay at home mom she was able to jump back in and get such a great job (especially in this market as Dan and I well know...)! It helps that she kept her resume current with things like speaking at national health conferences and serving on hospital ethics committies, but it is a big deal for her and I am really, really proud!

How great are my parents?! Now I just have to work on making them as proud of me as I am of them :)