This past Friday, the employees at Stormy Kromer were proud to welcome a legend into their factory. A Living Legend, actually.
- Jim Dehlin and family, with Bob Jacquart
Our inaugural Living Legend winner, Jim Dehlin (along with six family members, including his wife, son and daughter) spent a good part of Friday afternoon with us. What a treat.
The group started with a factory tour, given by our CEO, Bob Jacquart, of course. Bob gave them the royal treatment, sharing story after story about the factory and Stormy Kromer, and introducing the crew to many of our employees. The littlest member of the Dehlin clan even got to put eyelets into some caps!
After the tour, the group hit the retail store, putting a good dent into Jim’s $500 gift certificate. Unsurprisingly, in legendary fashion, Jim spent most of his prize money buying caps and gear for his friends and family instead of for himself.
The visit capped off our inagural Living Legend program. We received dozens of nominations and honored ten worthy nominees as finalists. During the voting period, over 8500 votes were cast, with Jim emerging as our winner. Earlier this month, we sent off our donation to Homes for Our Troops, in Jim’s honor.
Jim’s son Jesse, who nominated him, let us in on a little secret. “I know we were supposed to have the nominee’s permission before nominating, but I didn’t know what he would say. So I just did it.” We sure are glad he did.
On his way out, later on Friday afternoon, Jim pulled a staff member aside. “We’ve got to talk about some trademark issues,” he said. “Any objections to my next tattoo using the Stormy Kromer logo, with the words ‘It’s good to be first.’?”
No problem at all, Jim. And we couldn’t be prouder that you were first.
