Hi Meg!
I'm Jessica Carson, the editor-in-training for container gardening and I work as the office manager for a company called GoWesty on the central coast of California. The owner started the company about 17 years ago because he loved VW campers and he was fed up with the business ethic (if it can be called an ethic) of Silicon Valley big business. He built the company on care, compasion, honesty, and taking care of customers, employees, vendors, neighbors, friends, the environment, and life in general. It has done incredibly well and has a world-wide reputation for the best place for anything having to do with VW campers. We are very much a family, a team, built because we all care, not because anyone tells us we have to.
We constantly get letters from customers, some as far away as Europe or New Zealand, telling us how pleased, surprised, excited they are about us, our products, and how we take care of them. The business is still growing (though only about 10% a year now) and most of it because of the great reputation we have. Who says you have to be cut-throat to succeed? I worked for a cut-throat company for a while - this one has definitely done much better financially and for the well-being of the employees.
The website is
www.gowesty.com. There is some info about how the company started there, some photos of the team, and a little write-up and picture about many of the folks here.
I'll join in even though I'm on another continent from most of you.
