five in five* with emily johnson, strategic account manager

Meet Emily Johnson: lover of capsule wardrobes and camping trips, enthusiast of live music and repeller of bad vibes. On her frequent visits to the corner coffee machine, we’ve learned a lot about our strategic account manager. But not everything.

That’s why we had to sit her down for five questions. Five in Five is the interview series where we get to know our team members beyond what they tell us when we’re huddled around the Keurig.

I’ve always loved and felt happiest being outside. I met Jeremy, my husband, in high school, and just like me he loves being outdoors. Being kids who couldn’t afford anything and not coming from well-off homes, camping was a nice, easy and cheap thing to do together. We’d tent camp with our dogs, making all our food over the fire—hot dogs, pudgy pies. Then we had our daughter Nora and decided we couldn’t be those campers who have a crying baby in the tent, so we got a pop-up camper. We’ve gradually upgraded and just a few years ago bought a full-fledged camper and it is glorious returning to a hot crockpot after a four-mile hike.

I like to always joke Jeremy is my focus group of one. A lot of my perceptions of how contractors perceive brands and products is based off talking with him and seeing what he does for a living. It also helps break stereotypes, having this example right in front of me. But the old adage is true, when a contractor is working on homes all day, their home is the last home to be fixed! Of course the perk is that when he does have time to finish, he creates the most beautiful, quality work.

I love the people I work with. And I love helping my clients see the bigger strategic vision, thinking about ways to apply those sexier consumer goods approaches to building materials products in a way that generates excitement. I get satisfaction knowing we helped them introduce something in a cool and different way to a market that might not always be expecting that.

Glen Arbor, Michigan, where my husband and I would like to retire. Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore is really where our heart is. That’s why I have the bear tattoo on my arm. We’ve been going there for 20 years. If we miss a trip there, we feel a little saddened by it.

I’ve seen Weezer too many times to count. Muse was amazing. Coldplay was really cool—our wedding song is “Green Eyes.” The word was that Coldplay never play “Green Eyes.” But we went to see them and, sitting only a couple rows from the stage, we heard the first notes from the song. It was the first time they had played it live in ages and we happened to be there.

*Five in Five is where we catch up with an Interrupter to ask five questions in five minutes. It may have taken us (way) longer than five minutes to have this conversation. Sometimes we even ask more than five questions because we’re self-indulgent. But it shouldn’t take you longer than five minutes to read them, so we think it still counts.