Middlebury IN 3-19-2019

We are ready to head out this morning but decided since we are this close to Dearborn, we would stop by the Carhartt office, a company I worked for more than 30 years in Alaska. We did not call ahead to see if Mark Valade the CEO would be in, we were in hopes he would. Mark and I grew up in the business starting back in 1977, I was the youngest sales person and he was working his way up in the office. We struck up a friendship and whenever we would meet at sales meetings, we would always take the time to have a personal conversation. Even though he would ultimately be the CEO he always appreciated my honest feelings about what was going on in Carhartt from a sales point of view. Carhartt has grown in to a billion-dollar company and as we pulled up to the new buildings on the campus you had to be impressed. We walked into the main office and were greeted by a very nice receptionist, although you could see she wondered who we were, I said is Mark in and then you could really see her put her corporate hat on, I said I’m Doug Tweedie and if Mark is in we would love to see him. She calls to his office probably thinking that Mark will say Doug who, but instead he says I will be right down. Mark walks down the staircase with a big smile, its been over 10 years since I’ve seen him and it was great, he took the time to visit. Two hours later after discussing life and the many milestones of Carhartt that I was so glad to be part of we take a tour of the new offices that just got finished, just before we left Mark was so gracious in giving us the retiree discount for product and a bottle of Carhartt Wine that was being produced by a cousin in California. Back on the road to Middlebury IN to pick up our hopefully repaired RV. We reach Middlebury IN, and find our RV repaired, Jason our RV representative has been good to work with, just wish we did not have so many problems. I shot a picture of their vision statement that was hanging on the wall just in case I have to remind them what their promise was to their customers. Jason appreciates the effort we have made to come all the way up to the factory and he has been very accommodating with parts and even a solar panel. We head back to Shipshewana for another look at the town and dinner before we leave tomorrow. Dinner is at the Blue Gate Hotel & Restaurant, most of the businesses are owned by the Amish and this place is traditional Amish with down home meals and hospitality. The food is excellent and the wonderful bread with apple butter, OH MY. On our way out we see the gift shop with all these clever plaques.