Emily Joellenbeck

Once upon a time, not that long ago, in a land not so far away, there lived a hardworking girl named Emily. As a young naive high school student, Emily loved all things art – sculpting with clay, painting, sketching, even woodcraft, but she lacked the self-confidence to go to art school. So she did the next best thing, she went to school to become a scientist. Somewhere along the way, one well-meaning college advisor told young Emily that she would need to go to school for another 12 years to pursue the field she wanted to. No.Way. She cried her woes to her loving father, who proclaimed that she had an “analytical mind” so why don’t you follow in your father’s footsteps and become a computer programmer. So that’s what she did. But she was never really happy.

Fast forward about 10 years and her young boys were getting ready to enter school. It was time. Emily needed to figure out what she was going to do. Boys are expensive, you know – one even had a hollow leg that attached to his bottomless pit of a stomach – he was never full and groceries cost money. So it was time to enter the workforce, but not without stopping by a 4-year soiree making custom cakes out of her kitchen (shhh, don’t tell the health department. She sent both kids through pre-school doing that!).

Emily started to volunteer on a committee to market and recruit kids to a not-yet-existing new Catholic high school. She was hooked and that volunteer job became a paying gig. For the next 7 years, she was able to watch nearly 300 gangly, awkward teenagers walk through the doors, learn a lot, laugh a lot, sometimes even cry a little, and morph into wonderful humans – confident and ready to take on the world. She loved that job. Loved going to work everyday. Loved watching the struggle between wanting so badly to be an adult, but being pulled back into childhood all in the same moment. Teenagers were fun to hang around with.

Somewhere in those years, her own kids became teenagers and Emily decided it was time to move along when her oldest reached that ripe old age of FRESHMAN. She went to work for the Boy Scouts as a fundraiser. A job she also loved to do. But it wasn’t long before they figured out she had another talent they were sorely lacking – design skillz. Before you knew it, Emily was up to her ears in print work, direct mail pieces, and website content along with throwing really cool, fun fundraising events.

Emily knows it’s time to move on from her job at the Scouts. Why? Because she is ready for a new challenge. She is ready to learn from others, for each step in her career, she has learned from those around her. It’s time to change the people around her again.

This time, Emily is going back to her roots. To what brought her such joy at each of her stepping stones along the journey that got her to this moment. It’s time to embrace the creativity and to look for a marketing manager role. She’s ready. Are you ready to have a dedicated, hard-working, detail-oriented, team-player on your team?