Hey Team –
I hope this note finds you all well. As we make our way through the depths of our Wisconsin winter I wanted to provide an update on a handful of things happening across the company. In spite of the cold, this is actually a really busy season for us as we prepare for spring and summer.
Employee Trip #2 – In three short weeks another crew of Stone Creek coffee geeks is jumping on a jet plane and traveling to Guatemala. We are running two trips this season to catch up from missed trips due to COVID. Harvest is in full swing in Guatemala with higher elevations starting to ripen. Drew will be doing our coffee lot selection there for this year’s Ring of Fire and 3 Volcanoes. Then Drew and I will be headed to Costa Rica to work on some microlots and our updated Green Dragon. We’re glad to be back spending more time at origin as this has always been close to our hearts as #coffeegeeks!
Oconomowoc Remodel – We are in the home stretch of finishing our Oconomowoc cafe remodel. The cafe is scheduled to reopen on February 16th. Shout out to Joshua and his team for leading the remodel, also to Harmony & Angeline for their work on the finishes and decorative elements in the space. I also want to offer a big thank-you to the Ocon staff for their flexibility during this remodel and for their work to clean the cafe and get it ready for the reopen. Be sure to come by and see the updates next time you’re out that way!
Winter Learning Workshops – Next week we will kick off our winter workshops. This season’s workshops are scheduled to take place on February 7th and 9th. Please work with your team leader to be sure you signed up for your home workshop or if you have a conflict we are happy to have you join another workshop that works with your schedule. This set of workshops will be a time for us to catch up together, chat about the professional development survey and work together on some new B Corp sustainability projects. I will not be at these workshops because I made plans this past summer to take JoJo (my 5 year old) to Disneyland for her birthday. I do know that Drew, Karen, and Rachel are looking forward to the time with you all.
Director of Coffee Culture – I am excited to share that we have recently updated a handful of roles at the factory, including the creation of a new role at the company, Director of Coffee Culture. This new role will be accountable for all things coffee culture, education and coffee quality. Our previous Director of Coffee, Riley, has stepped out of her role and will be rejoining our retail team. I will continue to be our lead green coffee buyer. Joshua James (our current Director of Tech) will move into the role of Director of Coffee Culture effective today. Trainers and Tour Guides will report to him. Joshua is steeped in all things coffee and will help lead these customer facing teams building on our ongoing desire to improve our public and private coffee education. Joshua will keep his hands in our spaces and equipment as our new Tech Service Manager will also report to him. Finally, I want to thank Jes Rutherford and Bryan Kraft on our production team for helping take on sample roasting, cupping set-up duties, and some information and logistics responsibilities around our coffee movement.
Tech Service Manager – As noted above Joshua will be leaving his role as the head of our Tech team and our new leader of the Tech team will be Johnny Zei. Johnny has a strong technical background and strong commitment to remarkable care. His new role is also effective today. We are also opening a role on the Tech team so please review the job posting if you are someone with a propensity, and desire, to work with our coffee equipment. See the job posting here.
Please welcome both Johnny and Joshua to their new roles.
All this comes alongside the preparation work we’re doing on the Whitefish Bay cafe we announced earlier this month. Additionally, we just launched our new referral program, we’re testing a kiosk-based ordering platform at the Factory, and we’re working on evolving our food and drink lines. All of these development steps happen alongside the thousands of details we have to manage each week to make our interactions with our guests and partners remarkable. Thank you all for the important parts you play in this process. I’m excited to see how this work impacts our company and the ways it will empower us to become an even better employer and influence in our communities.
On we go –
Eric Resch
Managing Director
eresch@stonecreekcoffee.com