It has been a long time since my last blog post which was all about change. Ironically, since then, we have been through an enormous period of change that started very soon after that posting and has consumed vast quantities of time ultimately ending very positively.

After many months of job search littered with dead ends, false starts, broken promises and the kind of frustrations that appear to  be common to all job seekers, I have finally "landed".

As is often the case, I heard about the new opportunity through networking; a Riverbend member who has become a friend, heard about the position through another mutual acquaintance and after submitting my resume, I was interviewed by Skype the following day. Online personality and intelligence tests followed and within three days, Ginnie and I were heading to Michigan to meet the owner of the new company, David V. Johnson. We were so impressed by the professionalism and speed of response, something that sadly had been missing from many of the companies with whom I had been in contact during the last eight months, and David is an inspirational entrepreneur who has had great success in US real estate and resort developments and is now branching out into the Caribbean.

A few days later, we were heading down to the British Virgin Islands to see Biras Creek Resort (a Relais et Chateaux property) and David newest development on Virgin Gorda, Oil Nut Bay. We loved everything about the region, the people, the scenery and the company and a few days later we had negotiated a package for the position of VP-Hospitality for Victor International, responsible for both the US and BVI developments. 

The official papers have now come through and tomorrow, Virginia, our puppy, Hopi and I will fly to the BVI to start our new adventure. We will be spending the next two years in the Virgin Islands and then return to Bay Harbor, Michigan with continuing responsibility for the BVI properties.

All of the furniture from our Sheboygan home remains in storage in Wisconsin and will go to a new home in Michigan in two years. We have shipped a few personal odds and ends to Virgin Gorda and will look forward to dodging the Midwest winter as we luxuriate in temperatures in high 70s and low 80s. It will be an enormous change and naturally there is a certain amount of trepidation (see my last blog), but we are embracing it with open arms and can't wait to get started in earnest. 


Thanks to the many, many of you who have offered wonderful support to us during these last few months. It has been quite a salutary experience and we have been living out of suitcases for many months. However I believe I have a much better understanding of the plight of the unemployed now, and we were able to have some great experiences as well, including our month-long cross country road trip, and being able to be in Canada together for the birth of our first grandchild. Life is short and all of these memories help to round us as people. 

As I often say, no experience is bad experience and the next chapter is just about to begin!

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind. We sold our beautiful home in Sheboygan and the buyers wanted to close very quickly. In this market, it doesn't pay to be too inflexible and so we finished the packing that we had started several weeks earlier, booked a moving company and watched as our possessions were loaded onto a 53' semi. It was a bitter-sweet moment; we were happy to have sold our home, considering the current state of the real estate market, but sad to be leaving it after less than three years there. But as we said to friends and family, in the end it is just a building - the memories of happy times there remain, and we had some extraordinarily happy times entertaining in that house.

We elected to leave the furniture on the truck and pay a daily fee to store it there rather than unload it into storage, given that a couple of job prospects were looking quite promising and I was progressing well in the process. Hopefully, we thought, one of them would crystallize and we would soon be on our way to new climes. In the short term, we would travel north to Ontario and stay with various family members for what we hoped would be a short time. What we didn't figure into our calculations, was that the month of August seems to be the worst time to arrange interviews and trips to see resorts and hotels as so many of the senior teams take off on vacation.

So four weeks after our move, we are still in Canada playing the waiting game (we did take off to Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City last week to give our relatives a rest from us) and hoping that  will receive some positive news on the job front very soon. Effectively, right now we are homeless and jobless, a fact that was not lost on us as we listened to Bob Dylan's lyrics to Rolling Stone, the other day. How does it feel? Not great, but we are confident that this situation will be short lived and we will land somewhere soon. At least  we are close to my step-daughter, Lora, whose baby is due next week. 

There is a silver lining to every cloud!

We returned from our epic journey almost three weeks ago and yet I have not been able to find the time to complete this blog until now, as it is has been completely manic since we got back on the house selling and job hunting fronts. However, the last day was as interesting as the others.

We left our very nice hotel near Sioux Falls,  South Dakota and headed due east on Interstate 90, quickly crossing into Minnesota. I had looked for some Minnesota wineries that we might be able to visit en route that were not too far from the Interstate (this was going to be a 575 mile day and so we didn't have time for long detours) and located one near Rochester. 

Salem Glen Vineyard is a small farm winery that has been operating since 2007 making wines from cold-hardy variety grapes grown on property and around the region. There are no signs to it and you access the winery along a long, straight, dusty earth road. On Saturday afternoons, they often have live jazz in the tasting room (which opened in October 2009) and this beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon there were a couple of dozen people enjoying the music and wine. If we had more time we would have stayed longer as the atmosphere was wonderful.

Winemaker and owner, Dustin Ebert kindly took some time to show me around the winery, pointing out the astronomy observatory that is used as a logo on the wine label and explaining that he makes the wine in the garage attached to the house. A true 'garagiste".  About 1/3 of his grapes are grown on property and the rest he purchases regionally, within a 120 mile radius. Varieties include Seyval Blanc, Edelweiss, Frontenac Gris, Marquette (that was developed at the University of Minnesota) and Marechal Foch which we also saw in Nebraska. Dustin is a self taught winemaker who is extremely passionate about the wines, making about 1000 cases per year.   I asked him if he is particularly proud of any of his varietals. Currently, he really likes the Marquette and I was able to taste it with him. Well structured and balanced, the body is relatively light but the flavors are richer than I anticipated with aromas of cherry and a pleasing peppery finish. I was pleased to finish our trip at this beautiful little winery that epitomizes the philosophies of so many that we had visited in the 30 days we were away. Passion, individuality, experimentation and most of all a love of the land, and the vines that ultimately define the finished product. Wine should be for everyone and at Salem Glen, everyone is welcome. No pretence or stuffiness, just plain good fun!

After a drive through Wisconsin Dells (which we had never visited in ten years and for which we felt a bit guilty that we had never taken our kids there during their visits) we arrived back at our newly-painted-soon-to-be-sold house in Sheboygan at about 9:30pm, tired, safe and elated at having completed this epic journey.


As I reflect on the trip in which we traveled 7,500 miles, crossed 13 states and one Canadian province and visited dozens of wineries, I am in awe of several things. First, the sheer beauty of the different states and provinces. Each has an individuality and character that is unique and a personality that is distinct. It would be as impossible to pick a favorite state as it would be to pick a favorite wine. Certainly, drinking wine in the region in which it is made adds a whole different dimension to the enjoyment.

Second, the variety of wines, the different personalities of the winemakers, the beauty of the areas in which they are made and the zest for life that is engendered by everyone involved in the winemaking world has left an indelible imprint on us both. 

Third, I am in awe of our little puppy, Hopi. Spending that amount of time in the car, going to different hotels and cottages all the time could have been unsettling, but he was a trooper and so well behaved. The world is gradually becoming more doggy friendly and it was great for us to be able to have him with us both.

We are both so please we took the time and made the trip. I was able to continue the job search process and networking with the help of cell phone and WiFi connections and since returning I'm pleased to say that the job market appears to have brightened somewhat. There are several positions that I am pursuing in different parts of the country and with a little luck, one of them will come through and set us on our next adventure. 

Our house selling adventures are another story, and a bit of a roller coaster, having had one sale fall through. However that too will work itself out in time.  Whatever happens we have the memories, blogs and photographs from our trip and have experienced something that we will hold close to our hearts for the rest of our lives.

Don't forget to check out Ginnie's blog too

Attended a wonderful session this morning at Right Management in Milwaukee with a presentation by co-founder of Meet Meme, Andy Wright. It is truly inspiring to hear from young entrepreneurs about how they are leveraging the extraordinary technological developments that have swept the world in the last (very) few years, and Andy presented in an engaging and very interesting way.

I have had my own Meet Meme trading cards for a little over a week now and they certainly set you apart from others when you bring them out. The ability to scan the QR code with a smart phone and then link to my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts is amazing and I feel very hip knowing that I have them, even though they felt a bit strange at first. 

I feel that I have a pretty good grasp of most online technology. I got a Facebook page a couple of years ago, mainly because I found that people were telling me what my kids were doing before I knew, and they had all learned about it on FB. I have had a LinkedIn profile for a while but it is only in the last month that I have really begun to make the best of it - and what a great tool it is proving to be!

Twitter, however, has seemed like a different language and I didn't really see the point of it until I attended one of Right Management's excellent tutorials last week. Since then, I feel that i have almost "got it". There is so much information that it can be overwhelming, but I have connected with some very interesting people and it is fascinating. I can now absolutely see its value in a job search and just for keeping up to date with industry trends, not to mention news, literally as it happens.

So if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can do so by clicking on the button on my homepage.  Tweet, tweet!

The offer on the house finally came through and we were not happy with it initially. However after a lot of back and forth negotiations, I think we are set. Unfortunately it is contingent on the buyers being able to sell their home so this means we continue to market the property then give the purchasers 72 hours to finalize things if we receive another offer.

The weather has been awful for the last few days, and our house shows so much better when there is no snow on the ground and the blossoms are in full bloom, so hopefully that will be the case in a few weeks and we can have an Open House.

I have had some interviews and a lot of networking meetings in the last week with some exciting prospects to explore. Ginnie is back from her trip to Canada  where she was visiting her Mom and daughters, helping with the planning of her eldest daughter's wedding in June and catching up with family and friends. Hopi, our 3 year old Teddy Bear dog was great company but we were both pleased to see Ginnie back home. We are beginning to look seriously at the possibility of taking a cross-country road trip, probably starting around Easter. My youngest daughter, Rachel, is coming over for a week with her cousin before Easter, and so there is a lot to be looking forward to and I am feeling very positive about the future.

Three weeks ago I was laid off from Kohler as part of an economy-driven restructuring. The hospitality industry is having a tough time right now and the luxury market in particular is suffering, and so while I was shocked at the time, I understand.

As with anything in life, we have choices. I could choose to be negative and bitter, after all I had been with the company for almost ten years, or I could choose to look at this as a new opportunity to open up the next chapter of my life. My wife, Virginia is a stalwart supporter of positive thinking and together we have decided that we will embrace the future, whatever that is, with excitement and anticipation.

There are of course some practical things that cannot be ignored. One of these is our house. Although we absolutely love it and have put an enormous amount of sweat equity (and a sizeable chunk of real money) into making it feel like home, we are realists and understand that we will probably have to move for the right career opportunity. And so last week we put the house up for sale. Now, as the Wisconsin snow melts and spring begins to blossom, a big white sign adorns the front lawn and a lockbox is on the door.

I've spent the last three weeks going through a lot of emotions, but now feel that my search is beginning in earnest. I have received invaluable advice from some wonderful career specialists at Right Management (thank you Laura) and have a resume that I am happy with. I have been working the LinkedIn route diligently (a whole new way of interacting and networking that was not available when I was last in the job market) and I have made this website which has proven to be a lot of fun!

Being "in transition" is OK. I am confident that doors will open and for now, it is time to find those doors through my networking connections and whatever means are available. As an exponent of the principles of Emotional Intelligence, I know that I have choices. As I go through this transition, I CHOOSE to be optimistic.