Thursday, September 27, 2012

New Faces on the RHD Team!

2012 has been a big year of continued growth at RHD and as always we are so thankful for the opportunity to work with the best customers in the business.

This fall we have greatly expanded our staff and thus, our areas of service as well! I am so proud that these new team members have joined RHD. They are all SMART and experienced people that just add to the outstanding team that we have here. So, here are a few of our new team members! Some are new faces, and some need no introduction :)

 Callie Graves was our first hire of the summer / fall. Callie is originally from East Bernard, Texas, making her the 4th "Brahma" fan on our staff. Well, actually we are all BRAHMAN fans but we're talking about being fans of her alma mater, East Bernard High School, who's mascot is the Brahmas.

Callie will be working in our print division, primarily working with graphic design projects and also serving as a designer for the Chianina Journal and Chi Connection, which RHD is now designing. Callie has past experience as a print designer and is extremely familiar with Photoshop and InDesign, and also the rodeo business. She is awesome!

Next up, a lady who needs no introduction in the cattle business: KC Kinder. I always say KC Keffer, but then again, lots of people refer to me as Rachel Williams still...and it doesn't bother me... so I doubt KC minds either for those of us who always say KC Keffer. KC is an Indiana native and now an Oklahoma resident. She has a B.S. in Ag Communications from Oklahoma State and a great deal of experience in the cattle business.

KC joined the RHD team on a part time basis about a year ago as one of our RHD reps. She quickly became one of the top RHD Reps and then we hired her full time this summer. She does a lot of things around here. First, she is serving as our special projects coordinator, and currently her biggest project is the Best of the Barns contest which will crank up this fall. She also serves as coordinator of our RHD reps program and is our livestock sales representative. And she photographs and does video editing too. And, starting this fall, she joined our web updates team and spends a considerable amount of time working on websites now too. If you don't happen to know KC, she'll be at Louisville and lots of other fall shows and sales, most likely in the Hereford aisles. She's also the proud mother of two little adorable twins, who we all affectionately refer to as "Surround Sound."

Joining us in September 2012....Melissa Guttenberger, formerly Melissa Muegge and a Brenham, Texas native and Santa Gertrudis showman. Before Melissa officially agreed to join our team, I kept telling everyone at the office "She's a genius! She has a master's degree in ag communications!" To which then Carole sweetly reminded me that I TOO have a master's degree lol.

Melissa is super talented and extremely well versed in the agriculture and business industries. She has a B.S. in communications from Texas A&M where she worked for Dr. Joe Townsend and was very involved in all kinds of things there. Next, she received a M.S. in ag communications from the University of Florida, which us ag comm folks recognize as one of the top programs in the nation. From there, she went to work for Allflex as their national accounts manager, then later the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. So how'd she end up in Wharton, Texas? LOVE! Her husband Kelly is a Wharton native and the Guttenberger's have made their home here. Melissa joined our team as our web division project manager. We have been growing so much in the web division that we felt the need to split Tricia's past project manager duties into a print division and web division. So Tricia will continue to work with our print projects, and Melissa will now be handling the web projects. Melissa is also a proud mom of a handsome son, Grant.

And look at this...a MAN on the RHD team!!!! Some people ask how he handles it, but most people think he's pretty lucky to be working with 10 beautiful ladies all day! :)

Matt Sweeney joined RHD in September 2012 as our lead developer. So what does that mean? Means he's the smartest person on our staff. Including smarter than me!

Matt is a web design guru. He had been doing some freelance work for RHD for the past 2 years, but never had been able to take a full time position with us because his first calling is serving as youth minister for Grace Community Church here in Wharton. This fall, an opportunity came up where Matt could do both - work for RHD full time and still work with the church. God is so good!!!

Matt knows more about web design than I could ever dream of, and we expect that to start showing when you see the new designs that RHD will be able to produce with the addition of Matt to our team. His addition to our group means we will be able to offer advanced web design services now with lots of "bells and whistles" and new services. Matt is also an experienced videographer, and we will be able to offer that service now too. Before you start calling us to come video your sale cattle, we want to say that we will not be offering video services as extensively as some of our friends and colleages in the business like Ideal Video or Cattle in Motion. But we WILL be offering the kind of videos businesses and ranchers need like promotional videos, video blogs, and more. We have some awesome video work coming down the pipe in the next month so stay tuned.

WOW! So big things are happening here at RHD, and we give all the glory to GOD. Thank you to everyone who helps make our jobs a joy and for allowing us to do what we love!!! The best is yet to come from RHD! Stay tuned!

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