Fencing, stop motion animation, drum playing, pet chinchillas named Cello, film scoring, football watching. No, these activities that makeup someone obscure and famous; these are the hobbies of Statements  newest hire, Sammy.

Sammy made the cross-country trip from Lawrence, Kansas, in June and started at Statements in July. Though her full-time job is in the Sample Department, she is also the amazing behind-the-scenes talent of Tile Chic, and the one who all the rumors about the drum sticks swirl about.

“Ok the drumsticks.  What is with the drumsticks?” Sammy has worked on three feature films and, being the true artistic person she is, when life gets stressful she turns to calming activities which, in her case, involve music. So, when working on one of these movies as a transportation coordinator—a high intense and incredibly stressful position–she started carrying her drumsticks to work in a holster she wore and would leave set for five minutes or so to play a cadence or two and come back calmer and ready to resolve the problem.  Well, one can only image the rumors surrounding those drumsticks. One in particular was that she used the sticks against anyone who made her upset. Not a bad rep to have, the drumstick- “slinging” musician thought, and so it stuck, following her all the way from Kansas to Statements in Seattle.

As mentioned before, Sammy is the creative type, but not the kind who paints or does macramé in her spare time. Sammy is actually attending the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring program. The two-year intense music program culminates with students scoring music for feature films. Sammy’s dream is to be a film score composer, and it is this program that brought Sammy to the Pacific Northwest. When asked what she likes best about the Northwest, she says it sometimes blows her mind she is able to see both ocean and mountains at the same time.  I guess that’s what happens when you come from a land- locked state.

To finish off Sammy’s amazing musical talents she also produces her own stop-motion animation films. Don’t be embarrassed–I had to ask what they were, too. She describes them as similar to the Nightmare Before Christmas. My response was, “Oh, so like claymation.”  Claymation is a similar process except in stop-motion animation there is no clay.  Which makes sense; otherwise she probably would have said she did claymation films. You can check out Sammy’s videos, favorite music choices and everything else I did not mention about her at www.sammyapplegate.com.  It is a pretty awesome website.

With all Sammy is involved in, she still makes time to hang with the Statements crew, and enjoys everything her job has to offer. We are excited Sammy has joined us, and be sure to stay tuned to www.ciaotile.com for more of her amazing filming of witty tile shorts.

If Statements were a body, Steve Calkins would be the heart. Between his passion for the northwest (he grew up in Portland and has lived his entire adult life in Seattle), and his love for the tile business, we couldn’t ask for a better leader.

He graduated with a bachelors degree in business administration from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, and met Carol, his wife, while there. They will be celebrating 39 years of marriage in June. Steve and Carol became part of the tile/design industry in 1970, when he graduated from college and began working for Uniq Distributing Corporation in Portland. In 1974 when he and Carol were pregnant with their first child, they moved to Seattle and took over Uniq. Uniq carried Japanese 4 ¼” wall tile, a wide-variety of mosaics and 8” floor tile from Italy. Because it was the late 70’s, carpet, sheet vinyl and plastic laminate were the design trends at the time, but Steve, being the mover and shaker that he is, decided to change all that. He attended home shows at the Seattle Center to introduce Italian floor tile and the use of mosaics for kitchen backsplashes and tub recesses. To stay in touch with the trends he added plastic laminate and sheet vinyl to Uniq’s product mix through the 1980’s but always knew he was a tile guy at heart. His love of Italian tile grew after he developed a close friendship with some east coast buyers who were successfully purchasing Italian tile for distribution. In 1978 he took his first trip to Italy to buy tile and subsequently attended the Cersaie show (the world’s largest ceramic tile exhibition) in September of that same year. Since then, attending Cersaie has become an annual event for Steve.

Steve left Uniq for a two year hiatus. The sabbatical gave him time to work on his vision for a new type of tile distribution business with a smaller clientèle and a focus on the design community’s needs. So in October of 1997, he made this vision a reality when he opened Statements Distinctive Tile and Stone in Georgetown. In addition to Steve, there were five employees– two who worked part time. Everyone wore many hats during the early days. Steve handled orders, unloaded containers and purchased materials.

Steve takes great pride in knowing that, over the last eleven years, Statements has never lost sight of their initial vision for the designer.

Steve’s greatest pleasures in life have always been his children, family and friends, including the Statements staff–evidenced by how well he takes care of us.

His community involvement is also very important to him. He has been a nine year board member of the Ceramic Tile Distributors Association, which represents ceramic tile wholesalers with representatives and associate members from factories around the world. Steve is also president of his local church and has been on a number of non-profit boards. He and Carol also support a number of charities both internationally and locally and are currently board members for a low-income senior housing project that will be built in Lynnwood in 2009. Steve also encourages his employees to become involved in the community and will support them financially to do so. With his support, Statements has participated in the Children’s Hospital Cystic Fibrosis stair climb and Habitat for Humanity’s South Puget Sound projects, amongst many others.

Steve made two life changing decisions in 2008. The first change was to delegate a portion of Statements’ leadership to his son, Ryan. Although he has fewer responsibilities, he continues to be our chief ambassador, advisor and security blanket. The second change was to open a concept showroom in Pioneer Square geared towards Seattle’s architecture and design community. Statements Design Studio addresses the needs of architects and designers who are often unable to visit our Georgetown showroom. The space also provides a little more room for offices to accommodate our growing staff. The Georgetown showroom model has been a tremendous success in supporting the residential designer. Steve hopes the studio will do the same for architects and commercial designers.

Steve says his life today is “glorious.” He spends his time in the Pacific Northwest involved with his passions of work, family, friends and travel, but does grumble when the weather turns cold and he knows how warm and sunny it is in Arizona. When he is in Arizona, Steve stays connected to work, family and friends but plays a lot of golf! He has a phone line set up directly from Statements to his home in Arizona. Steve says, “…for me life can’t be any better.” This is obvious when you hear him speak about his life as a grandpa, his days golfing and his excitement when Statements has a great month. Steve is truly an inspiration to us all. He has so much positive energy and is an encouragement to all of us.

Self proclaimed “boring guy”, David, the warehouse’s newest addition, is anything but. Statements warehouse guy by day, student by night and rural mail man on the weekends, David is a man of all trades. He started here at Statements on Monday May 12th to assist us with our warehousing needs. A Santa Barbara transplant, David moved up here about a month ago and has been living with a roommate (he hopes temporarily) on Capitol Hill. He moved from the Golden State because he needed a change of scenery and (gasp!) claimed to be sick of the sun.

In the 4 weeks he has been here David finds the people in the Northwest more genuine, kind and less self absorbed than in California. So far, he really enjoys living in Seattle. As mentioned, David is also a student working towards a degree in communications and business through the University of Phoenix. And, just in case you want to know what he plans on doing after he graduates, don’t ask–he doesn’t know yet. That’s ok, David, you have plenty of time to decide!

In addition to his studies, David is a rural postman in Everett on Saturdays. No he is not disgruntled, no he doesn’t have to wear the uniform, no he doesn’t get to drive the mail truck and no he hasn’t been bitten by a dog (at least not while working for the post office). When David is not working at Statements, studying or delivering the mail, he is running. In California David used to run 40-50 miles per week. He loves to run– it is his way of relieving stress and gives him time to think. In addition to all of his other activities David also enjoys crosswords which will make him a great addition to Statements lunchtime crossword puzzlers: Kimi, Ryan and Rebekka. From what I’ve learned about David, he will be a great addition to the Statements warehouse. Welcome David!

About two weeks ago, the 11th of March to be exact, our sample department gained a new member of their flock, Jessica. Aside from a love of tile, she joined Statements to get her weekends back and to have more consistent hours. She says the thing she likes most about working at Statements is Annette and Paul, and who can blame her?

Jessica grew up in SeaTac and has lived in the Northwest her entire life. Her family owns a cabin outside Cle Elm which they share with another family. Her Dad built the whole cabin from the ground up. Jessica loves living in the Northwest because she loves nature: mountains, the ocean, and trees–especially trees.

Jessica is a girl of many interests. She plays guitar, bass, piano and flute. She also loves fabric and all things glittery and girly. Since she has never really had weekends off she does not really do anything major on the weekends yet but she is looking forward to embracing her new found freedom.
Aside from all of the other fun and interesting things about Jessica she is also a DJ. She DJ’s mainly private events like high school reunions, weddings and senior citizen dances. Her favorite are the senior citizen dances because she gets to play fun music and all the senior citizens dance. Jessica also has a little business on the side where she makes whimsical girly and as she describes it “dorky” accessories. You can find her creations as www.myspace.com/jessiebeanaccessories.

Jessica is really fun to talk to and a great addition to the Statements family.

When, “Richard you have a phone call on 114,” is paged over the intercom here at Statements, most of us think it is for Richard from Status, but actually it is the newest addition to our family, Richard Sariraksa. Richard has joined Statements as our Vice President of Finance. He comes to us from a long line of financial positions with other companies throughout his career.

Richard decided to join the tile industry after he got wind of us through a recruiting manager at Creative Financial Staffing in Seattle in December 2007. Richard has been an accountant since 1989 and worked for 12 years as a controller for Stockpot Soups which is a division of Campbell Soup Company. He also worked with Rainer Color, Video Only, and Legacy as their CFO before he joined Statements.

Richard was born in Thailand and moved to Cambodia when he was four because his father worked for the US Embassy in Bangkok. The family then moved to Thailand after the communist regime collapsed. When he was 17 he moved to Illinois where he was sponsored by one of his father’s friends. Not knowing English and being from a different culture was very hard for Richard especially with his family being half way across the world. He said when he used to walk to the train station from his house people would throw eggs and spit at him, but he overcame the adversity.

Richard spends his free time with his family and working in his yard. He also enjoys investing in real estate and equity markets and paying close attention to the stock market to invest in what seems most profitable. Richard also wants us to know he likes to joke a lot with his friends and family. So as we get to know him better maybe he can squeeze some laughs out of us.

At Statements, Richard is focusing on financial and operational efficiency to improve our bottom line along with realignment of our staff to achieve the best results as a company. I am not completely sure what that means but it seems like a great idea and we are lucky to have Richard on our team.