Pictured with Tommy Hopkins
Pictured with his wife, Nichole
UNFORGETTABLES
Ryan Collmer, a Storm Services Base Camp Site Manager, has many memories of being onsite during a storm. However, one of his most unforgettable moments is when he got a “behind the scenes” look into the Georgia office while working Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. As Hurricane Gustav approached the coast, Ryan was located in Syracuse, New York. Ryan traveled from Syracuse to stage for the storm in Cairo, Georgia. While in Cairo, Ryan spent some time in the office. Ryan said, “During a storm, there is a lot that must happen in a short period of time. I remember hearing Tommy Hopkins say that he was, ‘putting out fires,’ meaning that he was dealing with one thing at a time.” This is a lesson that Ryan carried with him.
Throughout the course of Gustav and Ike, Ryan traveled from Syracuse, New York, to Cairo, Georgia, to Springfield, Massachusetts, back to Cairo, Georgia, and ended up in Houston, Texas. Ryan had moved equipment back and forth before setting up a full base camp set up in Houston. Ryan recalls sleeping in his truck for the first seven days. He said, “The best thing about working with Storm Services is the experience that you have during a storm. These experiences bring you together and you are like a family…both our company and our customers. You work as a team and you make life long friends.”
In Ryan’s case, many of the people with him on site are his actual family, which is an added bonus! Ryan’s wife, Nichole, brother-in-law, Aaron, sister-in-law, Kristen, father-in-law, Louie, and mother- in-law, Vicki, often travel with Ryan to set up base camp sites. However, it is Ryan’s relationship with his mother-in-law that is a unique one. Ryan calls Vickie his “right hand lady.” He says that they “work very well together and rely on each other during a storm.”
Ryan is passionate about setting up base camp sites and seeing how it all works together. He enjoys the thought process behind knowing where to place the sleep trailers, the shower trailers, the dining tent, or the laundry trailers. Though he enjoys seeing all the pieces come together, his real joy comes from being able to mentor others while on a site. Ryan said, “It is important to be a motivator. It’s good to give people challenges they like because the outcome will be better than you expected. If you set the standard high and set goals for people, they will go above and beyond to meet those goals because you motivated them. We are better in the end, because of this.”
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