It felt like hours as I sat on the steps of the local bead shop in Ann Arbor, waiting for my childhood friend Ali to finish picking out beads from inside the store. I was only 12, and I couldn't understand her fascination with little round stones. Years later, I found myself back in Ann Arbor for college and trying to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my life. 2 departments, 3 majors, and 8 years later, I teamed up with my old childhood friend and her future-husband Kevin to build a web site for a company called "Lima Beads." It was the best of both worlds: I was doing what I loved (designing a cool web site) in the place I've always called home (Michigan).
I spend most of my time at Lima Beads making sure our web site is the best it can be! This includes brainstorming new features, illustrating graphics, managing databases, running reports, and making sure everything works smoothly. When you're using the Big Green Bead Machine, designing your own Fresh Pick, or just adding something to your Shopping Bag, chances are you're using something that I helped build. When I'm not answering phones, my other job here is to work with Ali on our advertisements--she has the ideas, and I try to put them on paper. I have probably drawn the little green Lima guy a thousand times (and, yes, he does have fingers inside those mittens)!
My favorite part about the Lima team is that we build everything the way we would want to experience it as a customer. We have the highest standards, and we don't compromise. This means late nights, failed experiments, and lots of coffee, but we're proud of the result and we hope you have a great experience with our company (even if it's only through the internet)!
You can probably tell from the leaf-jumping Lima guy above that I love the fall season—and on October 9, 2010, I got married on a beautiful Michigan fall day. Shannon and I spend most of our free time outside having fun hiking, biking, canoeing, and even ice skating and snowshoeing in the winter—and we bring our Irish Setter Reesey along everywhere we can.