Our business is run just like we all run our ranches . . . The work day doesn’t stop at 5:00 every day — you’ve got to make hay while the sun shines! Our employees are more like family and our kids are growing up with Ballyhoo as an integral part of their world. The growth of every aspect of our business over the last nine years is humbling.
Keeping up with demand, our crew and responsibilities have grown and been refined. John and Gerri no longer can take care of every detail by themselves! All of our employees are required to be flexible, covering whatever duty is needed, and they handle it wonderfully. It is this committed crew that really makes magic happen.
Presiding over the front office and assisting Gerri with graphic design, Amber Jones joined us in the fall of 2008. She heralds from New Mexico and hasn’t quite made friends with our weather. Holding a BS in agricultural communications and journalism from Kansas State (some folks are working to not hold that against her), Amber has a grasp of cattle and transfers her experiences perfectly into customer service and design work.
Our press operator, Jennifer Barkhoff, has become quite an asset in the three years since she first walked through our doors. Jen started with simple bindery and has grown into a very capable press operator and commands the shop. John’s right hand gal on the presses, her abilities, attention to detail and pride in her work have earned her much respect.
Kim Barkhoff is our accounting director, assists with bindery and whatever is needed in the print shop. She holds us together and balances all the pieces. We couldn’t run this show without her! Kim also manages the Shipping Center, our full service packing and shipping business housed on one end of our building. We ship packages for folks via UPS, FedEx, USPS and freight. This fits well with the print shop and is a great service to our community.
Bill and Sandy Hesselbart help us out with bindery in our busy times, filling that great need of part-time flexibility. They’re priceless in rolling with the last minute calls of “Yes, tomorrow morning,” or “No, everything fell apart, won’t be ready tomorrow as planned.” See, just like on a ranch, things don’t always go the way we plan!