Sonoma Bound and Very Proud

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July 26th, 2018

Just before take-off. Another flight and another adventure… (Click on any image to enlarge)

Greetings from 30,000 feet over southwestern Minnesota, blog faithful. I’m headed to Sonoma via Sacramento and will have to take a quick break in a minute when our meal shows up here in the front cabin. No, I don’t take it for granted to be seated up here and I do appreciate all the perks that come with it, but 40 years of almost nonstop travel does make you feel like you earned it, one flight at a time. Just a little.

I’m totally looking forward to seeing my NHRA colleagues this weekend, and to be back out there with Del Worsham and his team, and my first stop is another thing to look forward to. It took Vince Bienek and me about 36 years to reconnect after our season together with the Paintsville Hilanders in the Appalachian League, but now we’re doing a pretty good job of seeing each other once a year. Once a teammate, always a brother. We’ll be meeting tonight, along with his wonderful wife Mary, at El Dorado Kitchen on the Sonoma Square. There will be a lot of laughter.

There is one major topic I’m going to address in this blog, but I’ll get the nonsense out of the way first, including the fact that today was “one of those Minnesota days” before I headed to the airport. I don’t know how it is in your state, but in the Land of 10,000 Lakes there are midsummer or late summer days that give you a tease about what’s to come. Today is July 26, and in much of the country people are broiling as the summer sun bakes the landscape and the humans. As I left for the airport this morning, I stepped outside and felt “it.” It was in the low 60s and the overall feeling was “summer is never permanent” up here. Frankly, it felt refreshing and invigorating. Other than April blizzards, I don’t have a real problem with Minnesota winters, and I love the autumn. It was great to sense it again, although we’ll have plenty more hot and humid days before it gets here for real.

On that note, it’s worth mentioning that I will be attending the Brainerd race in mid-August, and that event is often the first place and time I feel “it” in my home state. It’s just a few hours north of the Twin Cities, but it’s not uncommon to leave hot and humid conditions in Woodbury and then experience that “here it comes” sensation in Brainerd. And this year I might be going much further north after the race, but that’s not decided yet so I’ll have to blog about that possibility later. Stay tuned.

Perfect!

Now let’s enjoy this.

A few weeks ago, Barbara told me she’d ordered something for our entryway from the garage. It’s what many people call a “mud room” but we just have a small bench in there to allow us to kick off dirty or snowy or slushy shoes when we come in that way. We’ve had a couple of different things hung up in there, but neither one of them clicked like “Oh yeah, that’s it for sure” until she found this framed print online.

This is perfect. When it showed up on the front porch she unpacked it and brought it down to my office in the lower level. She even turned it around and told me to close my eyes. When I saw it, I knew she’d found the perfect piece of art for that area. Is this awesome, or what?

And now on to the main topic in this brief blog from the air.

I actually wrote about this in last week’s blog but then overheard Barbara saying that “the official word” was not going to be released until the next day. While I was 99% sure that no one in an official capacity, who might be surprised by this announcement, would also be reading my blog, I knew I had to delete it just in case. No ballplayer ever wants to hear he’s been traded on the radio, and no executive wants word of a major career change to leak out on a dumb blog like mine. I can’t possibly be more proud of her.

Barbara has resigned from her position as Vice President – Investor Relations at Itron in Liberty Lake. No, she’s not retiring. Instead, she accepted the same position (VP of IR) with a company called H.B. Fuller. They are a worldwide leader in the area of industrial and consumer adhesives, and when they decided to ramp up their investor relations effort they heard about Barbara. After a couple of interviews, they knew they’d found the right person to spearhead this effort, and it was all about finding the right fit for everyone.

I acted, just a little bit, as her de facto agent when this was going on. I think every executive needs someone they trust to tell them what’s the right move, what’s the right plan, and just how good they are at what they do. I told her to trust herself and believe in her own talent. They made an offer she could not possibly refuse.

She was really impressed by the executive team, and excited about working with them to help take H.B. Fuller to the next level. Her nearly six-year career with Itron has been fabulous, and she loved the company and the leadership group. We loved our four years out in Liberty Lake, as well, and I miss many of the places and people we became so attached to out there. There was only one reason to even contemplate a change, and that was the fact we’d made the commitment to “come home” to the town of Woodbury and the state of Minnesota, and the lengthy commute out to Spokane was certainly a physical drag. I totally get that, trust me.

So, when a fantastic company makes a great offer, you need to consider it, right? Well, the best news of all is that H.B. Fuller has their headquarters in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota. Her new office will be about 12 miles from our Woodbury home. It’s a great company, with a solid investor base, led by great people, and it’s right here at home. She completely and utterly earned this.

She’s not the kind of person to just give her notice and walk away in two weeks, leaving her colleagues swinging in the breeze. So, between Itron and H.B. Fuller they all came up with a plan to allow Barbara to help with the next Itron quarterly earnings call and then start her new position in a couple of weeks.

Please join me in congratulating the single most talented and dedicated person I have ever known. And we’re now totally home. Instead of heading to MSP to commute to work on a 1,300 mile flight, she’ll drive up I-694 just a few exits and walk into her new office. We’re thrilled to be part of this fantastic company, and I’m beaming with pride at how Barbara’s nonstop dedication to excellence provided this opportunity.

My wife is a rock star. Simple as that.

That’s it for today. As always, the rule here is that if you just read this blog installment and thought “Well, that didn’t totally stink” then you should click on the “Like” button at the top. 8 million more likes and I’ll get a gift card, of some sort. Or maybe not.

Bob Wilber, at your service and beaming with pride.

 

 

 

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