Her First Love: Animals

Emily and her twin sister started their lives in Gillette, Wyoming, but had brief stints in Broadus, Montana, and Pierre, South Dakota, before settling down on a farm outside Blunt, South Dakota.  Her little sister was born there and because their father is a vet, there were always critters everywhere: a minimum of 15 but sometimes as many as 30.  And that was just the dogs!  If you ever wonder where Emily gets her love of animals from, there’s a really simple answer!

Watching her dad and being surrounded by all these animals Emily was sure she would be a vet, but when she got to high school she wasn’t sure if being a professional lover of animals was her calling…she was perfectly happy being an amateur.  But she still loved being around her family, which made the choice to go to college 11 hours away in another state (MSU, in Bozeman) a really tough decision for her.  But it marked one of the proudest moments of her life.  “I’m so thankful that I was willing to do something difficult to have a different lifestyle for myself that I couldn’t have had at home.”

Design and Service

One of those aspects of her different lifestyle has been her work with us here at TWA for the last three years.  As one of our graphic designers she’s making signs, car wraps, trailer graphics, wall wraps…pretty much anything our clients can think of and then some.  Like our Creative Director Elysia, Emily loves having the opportunity to come up with really fun designs from scratch.

While design is at the heart of what we do here at TWA, the best designs don’t matter if they aren’t matched by caring and responsive customer service, and we pride ourselves on delivering that kind of customer service.  

Scotland (and Dogs)

Emily has been to Scotland a couple times now and had always wanted to go, ever since she was young.  After a semester abroad studying in Italy she found herself “in the neighborhood” and decided to go for it.  She met her mom in Edinburgh and managed to get talked into taking a bus tour so they wouldn’t have to worry about transportation.  Emily managed to be the youngest person on said bus tour by at least 20 years!  She still had an amazing time and even made it to the very scenic Orkney islands off the north coast of the country.  She loves the age of everything in Europe in contrast to how new things are in our country.  This also influences her thinking on time-travel, as the Renaissance is the period she would must like to go to: “I would love to see the Sistine Chapel being painted right in front of me instead of just having to learn about it in a textbook.”

She also had a chance to see a herding demonstration with border collies.  Emily’s dad does sheep herding in his spare time, but in Scotland it’s part of the lifestyle and is done so differently.  When her dad does it he only uses one dog at a time, but they use up to 6 or 7!  Each dog is trained to recognize its specific whistle commands only so they can all be working on separate tasks.  As you can see, Emily even needs to spend time with dogs when she’s on vacation!

Around the office she’s our go-to person for dog-sitting and has even been known to take portrait photos of the dogs she takes care of.  Add “amateur dog photographer” to her long list of skills.

When we asked her for a go-to quote she shared something she’s heard recently and really likes: “Never blame anyone in life. The good people give you happiness. The worst people give you a lesson. The best people give you memories.”