2016 Azbee Awards of Excellence
Category
Print > Individual Profile > Heartland
Awarded to
Michelle Simakis, Editor
Entry details
‘What we do matters’
Issue date (if applicable): 12/1/2015
Publication name: Garden Center
Publishing company: GIE Media
Website home page: www.gardencentermag.com
Please describe the publication's mission and readership:
Garden Center’s mission is to provide our readers, independent garden center owners and operators, with the business management tools and comprehensive industry insight they need to run a profitable, efficient retail store.
Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:
Many, if not most CEOs and presidents in the independent garden center industry are men, and many businesses are family-owned. Garden center leaders often take over companies from their parents, and thus grow up in the industry.
Julie Kouhia, who was promoted to CEO of Molbak’s Garden + Home in June after serving as COO for a decade, has had a completely different experience. She spent much of her career at Fortune 500 companies like American Express, Starbucks and Amazon, before moving to an industry of independents, and because of this, has an interesting and different perspective about customer service and experience. I traveled to Seattle see the Woodinville, Washington, store, which is a top 100 garden center in the U.S., and spent two days with Kouhia to find out why she switched gears. I also spoke to her about why the store stopped growing its own plants in a time and region where “locally-grown” is celebrated. I was able to shadow her while she oversaw a huge fundraiser for the business, Girls’ Night Out, which attracts more than 500 people to each of two events held in November. In addition to the cover story, I recorded a podcast with Kouhia and a video of Girls’ Night Out, helping create a package of interesting and related multimedia content as well as achieve our goal of serving readers in multiple ways. (Related links. Podcast: http://www.gardencentermag.com/video/julie-kouhia-interview-molbaks-2015 Video: http://www.gardencentermag.com/video/girls-night-out-molbaks-garden-home-2015)
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‘What we do matters’
Category
Print > Individual Profile > Heartland
Description
Publication name:
Garden Center
Company:
GIE Media
Winner Status
- Regional Silver Award
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